


Real Time

by tastewithouttalent



Series: A Thousand Words [3]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awkwardness, Blindfolds, Commitment, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Festivals, First Dates, Grinding, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Phone Calls & Telephones, Restaurants, Sexual Fantasy, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-05-04 20:57:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14601567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'You might not want to publicize exactly who you’re out on a sushi date with.'" Shizuo and Izaya work out how to move forward after breaking free of their frame.





	1. Developing

Shizuo almost doesn’t make it through the doors of the restaurant.

It’s just a restaurant. He tells himself that the whole time he’s making his way through the city, walking slowly enough and with enough tension in his expression that the path before him clears as if by magic. It’s hardly a major undertaking to stop by Russia Sushi instead of making something to eat at home; he would think nothing of it if he were with Tom, or Kasuka, or even with Celty, for all that she can’t join him in the simple enjoyment of a meal. The act of what he’s doing is laughably straightforward, hardly something to merit the tension he can feel hunching his shoulders forward as if he’s preparing for a fight; but all the logic in the world has never done him any good when it comes to this subject in the past, and it’s not much of a surprise to find it fails him now. At least the adrenaline is fluttering in his stomach instead of clenching at his jaw, and trembling at his fingers instead of curling them to fists; the difference in the experience is nearly pleasant just for the novelty of it. Shizuo thinks he might be able to learn to appreciate this excitement, given enough time to accustom himself to the sensation of it, but for now, in this exact moment, all it’s doing is making him feel sick.

The shop is more full than he expected it to be. Russia Sushi isn’t the nicest restaurant in town, but their menu manages to hit a point between expense and quality that draws visitors from a wide swath of the city. Shizuo glances at the clientèle without really seeing the harried businessmen in their suits any more than the high schools in giggling clusters of enthusiasm: none of them are the person he’s looking for, he can tell that much at a glance.

“Shizu-oh!” Simon’s voice is loud enough to echo off the walls around them, or would if the space weren’t already filled with chatter and conversation; even as it is there’s a weight to it that carries clearly to Shizuo’s ears and brings his attention swinging around to the beaming man following him in through the doorway. “You here for sushi, yes? Sit down, sushi come to you.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, and lifts his hand to wave aside Simon’s open gesture towards one of the empty seats up at the bar counter. “Not right now. I’m here to meet someone.”

“Oh-ho,” Simon rumbles. “Sushi date? Very good, very wise. Sushi good path to love.” He lifts a hand to wave to Shizuo as he beams so wide that his eyes are nearly lost to the crinkling corners of them. “Happy sushi, Shizu-oh.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says again, ducking his head to nod in answer to Simon’s unintelligible but well-intentioned encouragement. Simon turns to leave the shop and return to his post on the front sidewalk and Shizuo turns his attention back to the crowd around him. He glances over the unfamiliar faces, his frown deepening as he rejects the possibility of familiarity from wide grins or pensive frowns alike, before he huffs a breath and steps forward into the restaurant, moving past the crowd nearer the entrance as he takes his phone from his pocket to consider the text that came through as he was coming around the corner to the shop.

_Inside Russia Sushi. Come and find me._

Shizuo scowls at the screen as if it’s his phone’s fault he’s left searching through a crowd of strangers to find the familiar face he’s looking for. He glances up to check his path; he’s nearly at the end of the bar now and approaching the more private booths that line the back edge of the restaurant. The half-curtains that hang in front of them provide some measure of cover to the people sitting inside; Shizuo has to slow his stride to frown through the gaps between them individually as he considers the other patrons of the restaurant. There’s a trio of girls in the first, too caught up in their own half-whispered conversation to even spare him a glance; a businessman sits across the table from an austere woman in the second, ducking his head and mumbling something that could be a polite apology or a profession of love. There’s someone in a red hoodie, tucked away into the far corner of a booth and with their head ducked forward to hide their features, and an empty table at the next; Shizuo is scowling all across his face by the time he comes to the last booth, and he only spares the couple within a glare before he’s turning back with force to head back towards the front of the restaurant as he pulls his phone from his pocket to type out a message with more force than it requires.

 _i’m here. you’re not._ He hits _Send_ and lets his hand drop to his side with his phone still braced in the tension of his anger-tight grip; but the answering chime of an incoming message comes from the booth just ahead of him rather than the phone in his hand. Shizuo stumbles in his steady stride, his attention swinging around in answer to that serendipitous notification, and he’s just turning to stare at the half-drawn curtain when there’s a huff of a breath in a laugh he knows too well for mistake.

“All these years and you still don’t know what I look like?” The voice is clear, the words sharp as glass even in the soft tone in which they’re offered, and Shizuo is coming forward immediately, moving as if his body is answering that tone more than his own conscious thought. The curtain gives way the to shove of his hand, the booth inside is laid clear to his sight: and there he is, sitting back at the far side of the booth and flashing that grin like a dare from under the shadows of the hood he has pulled up over his dark hair.

“ _Izaya_ ,” Shizuo growls.

Izaya tips his head to the side as his smile drags a sharp angle against the soft of his lips. “In the flesh,” he says, and spreads his hands at his sides as if to make an offering of his presence. “You’re late.”

“I couldn’t find you,” Shizuo tells him as he slides his phone back into his pocket. He steps forward into the booth and drops to sit heavily on the bench opposite where Izaya has settled himself; Izaya doesn’t move to lean in towards him, but his crimson-shaded eyes follow Shizuo with unswerving focus in spite of the flippant amusement curling at his lips. Shizuo answers that attention with a frown and a jerk of his chin towards the other’s sweater. “I was looking for something darker.”

“I’m undercover,” Izaya says. “It’s easier to go unnoticed if you don’t look like people expect.” His gaze slides off Shizuo’s to drag down against the uniform covering the other’s shoulders and chest with brief, pointed consideration; Shizuo’s jaw sets but it does nothing to quell the surge of heat that goes through him in answer to that attention. Izaya’s eyes swing back up to meet Shizuo’s without so much as a flicker in the tension of his expression or a shift in the strain of his smile. “You don’t appear to be particularly concerned about that yourself.”

Shizuo hunches his shoulders underneath the dark of his vest. “I didn’t think about it,” he says. “I’m just going out to dinner, I don’t care who sees me.”

“You don’t care who sees _you_ ,” Izaya repeats back. His lashes dip, his gaze drops to the table before him; when he shifts it’s to hunch his shoulders up under his hoodie and lift his hand to brace his thumb against the edge of the table to dig a nail in against the smooth polish of the wood. “Do you mind being seen with _me_?”

Shizuo rocks back against his seat as his mouth drags onto a frown. “Huh?” he says. “What are you talking about?”

Izaya’s lashes dip, his gaze comes up to cut through the shadows of them and meet Shizuo’s stare. Shizuo can’t see the red in his eyes at all, anymore, with the weight of that darkness to shadow it out of existence. “You’re at a restaurant,” Izaya says, speaking with deliberate clarity as if to a young child. “In public, surrounded by a city who recognizes you on sight.” He looks back down again to where he’s digging his thumbnail underneath a splinter of wood. “You might not want to publicize exactly who you’re out on a sushi date with.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya. The other isn’t looking at him anymore; he has his head ducked down so his hair falls in front of his features to obscure the straight line of his nose and the high arch of his cheekbones. Even his smile is gone, faded away like dusk before the dawn; with the bright color of his sweater to throw off the shadows that usually surround him he looks like he could be any other beautiful young man, appreciated but overlooked as easily as Shizuo did on his first pass past the booth. The thought makes Shizuo feel strange, almost lightheaded, as if some constant in the universe is giving way even as he considers it, until the anxious fret of Izaya’s thumb at the table is more than he can bear.

“ _Stop_ that,” he snaps, and he’s reaching out to grab at Izaya’s wrist and drag the other’s touch away from the wood before he can think. Izaya’s head comes up, his gaze rises to meet Shizuo’s and catch the light to a suggestion of red, but Shizuo doesn’t turn aside to soften the weight of the frown he’s giving the other.

“Stop that,” he says, a little more softly now that Izaya’s motion has been stalled to strained stillness. “Don’t assume you know what I’m thinking.”

Izaya’s mouth twists. The smile at his lips doesn’t touch his eyes at all. “Don’t I?”

“No,” Shizuo says, fast with certainty. “I don’t care who sees me with you.”

Izaya snorts a laugh framed on skepticism. “Sure,” he says, and there’s a bite on his tone, a mockery of amusement harsh as a cough against the back of his throat. “You’re going to take me to an amusement park and walk around hand-in-hand like high school sweethearts?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Shizuo says, mostly just to push back against that brittle snap on Izaya’s voice. “If you want to.” Izaya’s lashes flicker, his eyes widen fractionally, and Shizuo looks down to frown at Izaya’s wrist in his hold. Izaya’s hand is turned up, his fingers curled into slack surrender to the force of Shizuo’s grip on him; Shizuo can feel the line of bone under his fingers, can feel the heat as of a bruise rising to answer the press of his grip against Izaya’s skin. He grimaces and loosens his hold, carefully so Izaya won’t mistake gentleness for retreat, so he can still maintain his grip on the other even as some of the tension in his shoulders bleeds off and away.

“I do want to do that,” Shizuo says. “Go on dates and out to movies and to the beach and all of that.” He frowns at Izaya’s wrist before he lets his grip go so he can slide his fingers up to push roughly between Izaya’s slack ones. Izaya hisses an inhale, Shizuo’s cheeks flush with heat, but he closes his hold tight on Izaya’s hand rather than letting go. “I want to hold your hand, if I want to.”

“In public?” Izaya asks. He tugs back against Shizuo’s hold, very slightly, more like he’s testing the other’s grip than actually trying to break free. “You’ll cause a riot, Shizu-chan.”

“I don’t care,” Shizuo says, and then he lifts his gaze from his hand closed around Izaya’s to meet the other’s gaze instead. Izaya isn’t smiling, now; his mouth is soft, his eyes are dark. He looks like he’s waiting for something, as if he’s expecting the blow that must follow this statement; as if he’s trying to fight back the flicker of hope against the relaxed curve of his mouth. He looks like a stranger, stripped of the knife-edge smile and broken-glass laugh Shizuo has always seen from him before; he looks so entirely himself that Shizuo can’t imagine how he didn’t recognize him from across the whole distance of the restaurant. Shizuo’s fingers tighten, his hold slotting into the space between Izaya’s knuckles, and he doesn’t look away from the other’s face. “I’m not ashamed of being with you.”

Izaya’s forehead creases, his brows draw together. His lips shift, dragging onto a frown almost of pain for a moment before he ducks his head to hide behind the shining weight of his hair.

“You always surprise me, Shizu-chan.” There’s a weird roughness on his voice, a strain like Shizuo’s never heard before; Shizuo can hear the sound of Izaya struggling over an inhale like he’s fighting for the air. He shakes his head; against Shizuo’s hand his fingers tighten to fit close against the other’s hold. “That’s why I--” But his voice dies to silence, the familiar lilt of hatred fades to the truth of quiet instead, and they’re left in their booth together, wordless and still with their hands interlaced on the table before them.

Shizuo goes on watching the dark of Izaya’s hair for a long moment, trying to pick meaning apart from the shadows half-hiding the other’s face and the sound of his breathing struggled down to softness between them; and then he takes a breath, and he leans forward to reach out and touch Izaya’s shoulder.

“This looks good,” he says. Izaya’s lashes shift, his head lifts so he can look at Shizuo; Shizuo keeps his attention on the hoodie under his fingers rather than looking to see the expression on Izaya’s face. “You should wear red more often.”

Izaya snorts. “I’ll take it on consideration.”

Shizuo looks back to his face. Izaya still has his head tipped down to shadow his features, but there’s the strain of a smile starting at his mouth, and whatever liquid emotion was collecting at his lashes has retreated to make space for the beginning of amusement now. It eases some pressure in Shizuo’s chest and give him the space to take a full breath before he forces himself into the put-upon irritation of a frown. “You’re not going to take my suggestion?”

Izaya tips his head to the side and lifts his shoulder into a shrug as he leans back against the support of the seat behind him. “If we’re trading fashion advice does that mean I can get you out of that ridiculous uniform once in a while?”

Shizuo growls far in the back of his throat. “It’s not _ridiculous_. Kasuka--”

“--Gave it to you, yes, I know.” Izaya leans forward over the table to press his elbow hard against the support as he reaches out to touch against the lapel of Shizuo’s vest. “That doesn’t mean you have to keep wearing it forever. You haven’t worked as a bartender in years.” His fingers slide up Shizuo’s vest to threaten the crisp line of the other’s collar. “And I have some things you’d look much better in.”

Shizuo snorts. “Like what?”

Izaya raises his eyebrows and his shoulder at once, tilting his head into the perfectly structured illusion of casualness. “Me.” Shizuo blinks, caught off-guard by the abrupt turn away from his expectations; and then Izaya lifts his gaze, and curves a smile, and Shizuo can understand everything he needs to just from the sparkle of crimson in the other’s eyes.

“ _Izaya_ ,” he growls, tearing the word free from his throat as much with the heat that hits him as the irritation. Izaya’s teeth flash on a grin, his laugh breaks into the quiet of their booth, and Shizuo reaches out to catch a hand at the back of his jacket hood and pull the other in against his mouth while he’s still rumbling frustration against the inside of his chest. Izaya’s amusement cuts off at the same time as Shizuo’s irritation, the both of them stifled against the other’s lips, and for a few minutes neither of them have anything to say at all.

The curtain is only half a barrier, but Shizuo doesn’t care who happens to see them.


	2. Framing

Izaya needs to pull himself together.

He has work to do. Things have piled up on him over the last few days: from a whole array of calls he missed that first evening, when he came back from a fruitless search of Ikebukuro for a missing phone only to find his phone and its finder waiting outside his hotel room, straight through to the dreamlike haze that has taken control of his life in the days hence, he’s been less than useless for a span of nearly three days in a row now. He has calls to return, messages to reply to, inquiries to answer and investigations to begin and trouble to cause; and yet every morning passes in a daze as if he’s still trapped in a dream, every afternoon slides away in a blur of anxious uncertainty, and the evenings...well, his evenings are still his own, but looking forward to what or who the night may bring with it is hardly productive for the long hours of daylight that he finds himself facing now.

He wakes alone. That’s remained unchanged, for all but that first night; Shizuo drew back after their tumultuous start, apparently hampered by some idea of propriety that Izaya had never expected from a man who’s been known to destroy traffic lights for a minor irritation. It’s charming, on some level that Izaya feels even if he’s unwilling to admit it even to himself, but it means he spends nights sleepless or restless, adrift in the span of the bed that never seemed too large for just him until he found how well Shizuo fit within it. It’s only exhaustion that pulls him into sleep, and then his dreams are delirious reviews of the recent past until he wakes more than half-convinced everything was an illusion, that if he dares to set foot in Ikebukuro again he’ll be greeted with a blow instead of the kiss he can’t make himself trust in yet. It’s the stress of that that finally pulls him groaning into wakefulness an hour shy of full dawn; he leaves his bedsheets rumpled and goes to stand under the heat of a full-force shower while he indulges in his recent routine of reviewing everything that has happened to him over the last week, as if he can make it more real by repetition. He plays it in reverse, from the rushed conversation in the shadows of a park yesterday while Shizuo smoked through the cigarette that served as the excuse for his few minutes of freedom, through the evening at Russia Sushi with frowns and stumbling speech to offset the heat of Shizuo’s hand at his, before finally arriving back at that first impossibility, of Shizuo’s hands at his shoulders and fingers against his skin and voice grating on sincerity, “ _I love you”_ dragged into surprise in his throat while Izaya quivered with responsive resonance to the sheer fact of Shizuo’s presence. He ends up breathing harder under the spray, as he always does, his focus knocked astray by the too-much heat of remembered reality clearer than even his favorite fantasies, and when he braces against the shower wall and reaches down to grip against himself it takes so little time to find relief that the water hasn’t even run cold by the time he’s groaning Shizuo’s name to the tile around him. Izaya stands where is for a long moment, eyes shut and breathing rasping and blood humming in his veins; and then he heaves a sigh, and straightens, and moves through the rest of his shower with aggressive focus under his actions.

He’s going to get things done. He’s very busy, after all, he has dozens of people counting on him and a handful of complex plots half-finished throughout the city; they will find their own conclusions without his influence, but the results may not be those he’s most interested in seeing, and it would be a shame to lose the work of months, in some cases, just because he’s too lovestruck to compose himself. This is what Izaya tells himself, as he washes with deliberate haste and runs a comb through his hair before retreating to the bedroom to put on the armor of his usual dark clothes. It’s not as if his feelings have changed at all; the fact of startling, impossible reciprocation should make no difference. Let Shizuo daydream and pine his way out of a job; Izaya is hardly such a teenager that he’ll be so undone by the simple fact of taking a lover for himself. He tells himself this with certainty, in his head while he’s getting dressed and then out loud, staring fixedly into the reflection of his own gaze in the mirror; it’s only when he realizes he’s pulling at the neckline of his shirt to consider the dark of a fading bruise at his shoulder and pressing his touch against the shadow of Shizuo’s mouth against his skin that he catches himself, and then he turns aside so quickly he almost doesn’t see his face flame to crimson in the glass.

He goes to his computer first thing. There’s an array of messages awaiting his consideration if not his response, and while reading is easy enough on his phone that comes with a host of other temptations that Izaya doesn’t want to think about too closely for fear of getting drawn into his collection of photos again, or just into a daydream to leave him gazing blankly across the distance of his apartment while he remembers Shizuo’s hand at his waist, Shizuo’s shoulders angling over him, Shizuo’s mouth--and he hisses a breath of frustration, and sets his phone far to the edge of his desk, and reaches to turn on his computer so he can fall to frowning deliberate attention at the screen as it boots and loads the login form across the monitor.

He really does have a lot to go through. He starts with emails, skimming most and leaving a few to respond to in more depth; the wave of information is overwhelming, so much that it knocks aside even the lingering glow of self-conscious pleasure in his own recent experiences clear out of Izaya’s mind. There are a few moments of distraction in the first hour, as his mind wanders into the gaps between messages to drift into daydreams before he can rein it back in; but the farther he goes the more caught his curiosity becomes in the immediacy of what he’s doing, until even the thought of Heiwajima Shizuo doesn’t interrupt the flow of his focus. An hour goes by, another, the light outside glowing through the illumination of daybreak and sweeping from the clear brilliance of morning to the certain bright of noon, and Izaya stays focused on the screen in front of him, even the idle tapping of his heel against the floor forgotten in the full attention he’s giving to the text flickering across his computer screen.

The sound is shocking. It takes Izaya a moment even to place it; for the first heartbeat he’s hissing at the unpleasant sensation of being pulled out of himself, of having his attention forced away from his present occupation by the demands of something in the reality he left behind him. For a moment he thinks of ignoring it, of holding the tighter to the focus he has finally found for himself; but then the sound comes again, his mind drags aside to identify it as a ring instead of the meaningless noise it first seemed, and Izaya knows his focus is gone, however much he may wish he could cling to it. He grimaces at the half-finished message before him, irritation dragging at his mouth as he pushes the keyboard away, and when he leans in forward over his desk to fumble for his phone it’s with frustration tense at his shoulders and straining at his fingers. He grabs his phone with more aggression than the motion requires, lifting it so he can glare at the caller ID displayed on the screen; and then he sees the characters flashing at him, his mind leaps forward into recollection that hits as abruptly as a blow, and Izaya nearly drops his phone right back to the desk as all his tension falls into sudden boneless shock. He rocks back into his chair, pulling his phone in close so he can answer the call, and no sooner has he touched against the screen than he’s pushing back to get to his feet as the nerves in him refuse to leave him still even long enough to answer. “Shizu-chan.”

There’s a gust of an exhale loud enough to crackle static across Izaya’s ear. “ _Hey.”_ Shizuo sounds strange, like he’s struggling to find words; or maybe it’s just Izaya’s own tension bleeding into his attention to this too, as he steps away from his computer to pace too-fast steps along the distance in front of his window. “ _I didn’t know if you’d pick up. Are you busy?”_

“It’s first thing in the morning,” Izaya says. He’s cringing even as he hears himself say the words, as they snap over the edge of habit instead of the uncanny gentleness that his audience merits, now, he thinks; but his voice quivers in his throat and drops itself into uncertain softness in spite of habit. “Of course I’m busy.”

“ _What?”_ Shizuo huffs a breath like a laugh, albeit an uncertain one. “ _It’s almost one in the afternoon.”_

Izaya stops dead and looks up towards the wall. There’s a clock there, the hands showing up in stark dark against the simple white of the background, but his brain refuses to make sense of the time displayed, even when he stares at it. He pulls his phone away from his ear to check that instead, but the numbers in the corner read the same impossibility, however he stares at them. Izaya gapes at the display for a moment, caught entirely speechless by this revelation that he’s apparently misplaced several hours of his life without noticing; and then there’s a crackle of sound from the receiver, the sound of Shizuo’s voice identifiable but too distant to understand, and Izaya’s hand lifts his phone back to his ear to hear what the other has to say without any thought on his part at all.

“ _\--sleeping in?”_ There’s a rumble on Shizuo’s voice, barely-repressed laughter warm in his throat; Izaya’s whole body shivers into answering heat in spite of himself, answering a question Shizuo probably doesn’t even realize he’s asking. “ _I didn’t think you for the type.”_

“No,” Izaya says. His voice is still embarrassingly shaky; he clears his throat as deliberately as he can before he resumes speaking. “I got caught up in work and lost track of time.”

“ _Caught up in meddling? That sounds more like you.”_

Izaya hunches his shoulders in and lifts his free hand to push through his hair while he gropes blindly for something, anything else to say to keep Shizuo on the line. “What are _you_ doing?” is finally what he settles on, in spite of the aggressive edge under the words. He forces a laugh and makes himself drop his hand to his side, as if the motion can unravel the tension trying to knot all across his shoulders. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”

“ _Yeah,”_ Shizuo admits. “ _We’re taking a break for lunch. Tom-san’s still finishing his food and I thought I’d call before we head out.”_

Izaya’s breath catches. “Sneaking a quick conversation in on your smoke break?” he asks with an edge on his tone he can’t undo even when he forces himself into a brittle laugh. “You’d better get off the phone before Tom-san catches you talking to me.”

“ _Huh?”_ Shizuo sounds startled and a little confused. “ _What are you talking about?”_

“He thinks you’re just out having a cigarette,” Izaya tells Shizuo. “What are you going to tell him if he finds you on the phone?” He drags himself through another laugh. “He’s going to want to meet your girlfriend.”

“ _No he’s not,”_ Shizuo says. There’s an edge on his voice, roughness enough to carry the familiar force of anger; it burns against Izaya’s breathing with a heat enough to warm the painful chill of unhappiness aching in his chest. “ _He already knows my boyfriend, after all.”_

Izaya’s eyes go wide, his weight rocks back. He’s left staring at the far side of his apartment, gazing straight out the window without seeing anything at all. There’s total silence on the phone for a moment, the space empty of his speech or Shizuo’s either one, before Shizuo takes a breath so obviously self-conscious that Izaya can picture the anxious hand shoving through bleached-pale hair.

“ _Sorry,”_ Shizuo says. “ _I didn’t think about asking for permission to tell him. But we’re dating, I mean, it’s weird to not tell my friends like it’s some kind of secret.”_

Izaya blinks and swallows before he speaks. “You told your boss you’re dating me?”

“ _Yeah,”_ Shizuo says. “ _Look, I_ am _sorry I didn’t ask. But we_ are _dating, and I don’t want to act like we’re not, that seems_ stupid _.”_ His voice drops lower, the pace of his words speeds; Izaya can hear the catch of Shizuo’s breathing coming faster, as if he’s pacing rapidly along the sidewalk where he’s walking. “ _I don’t get why you’d want to hide that you’re dating someone. If you care about them enough to be together shouldn’t you be proud of that? I’m not going to lie if someone asks me just so--”_

“I don’t,” Izaya says, speaking loud so the words will cut through the escalating pace of Shizuo’s speech. Shizuo stumbles into silence, his voice cutting off into incoherence, and Izaya huffs a breath and ducks his head as he shuts his eyes and wraps an arm around himself. “I didn’t say I wanted you to say we weren’t together.”

“ _Oh.”_ There’s a pause. “ _You don’t mind if I talk about you to Tom-san?”_

Izaya huffs a breath and looks back up to stare across his apartment. “If you feel the need, go ahead.”

Shizuo heaves a gusty exhale. “ _Cool. It’s hard not to, anyway. I’ve been kind of distracted the last few days and he’s been worried about me cause of that.”_

“You’ve been distracted?” Izaya asks. “By _me_?”

“ _Yeah.”_ There’s no embarrassment on Shizuo’s voice any more than there is hesitation. “ _Ever since…”_ His voice trails off but Izaya’s skin still heats with memory, with the recollection of Shizuo’s voice demanding honesty at the same time his fingers stroked sincerity from Izaya’s body, of confessions spilling from his own throat in time with the quaking force of pleasure radiating through him. Shizuo coughs and clears his throat roughly on the other end of the line. “ _I just keep thinking about you. No matter what I’m doing.”_

Izaya clears his throat. “All these years trying to get your attention and all it took was one night? I should have tried seduction from the start.” Shizuo laughs, as he was intended to; Izaya ducks his head forward and lifts his hand to push through his hair, glad there’s no one present to see the smile he can’t manage to hold back from his face. He takes a breath, feeling his heart pounding on adrenaline in his chest; and then he shuts his eyes and speaks in a rush. “You know you don’t have to drive Tom-san crazy babbling about me to him.” Izaya lets his hand fall and lifts his head to gaze up at the ceiling with the best illusion of calm he can find for himself around the nerves hammering his heart to doubletime in his chest. “You could just call me.”

There’s a pause that lasts a matter of seconds and feels like an eternity to Izaya. “ _Can I?”_

“I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t mean it.” Izaya takes a breath and lets it out as quietly as he can manage. “I don’t mind hearing from my boyfriend once in a while.”

Shizuo clears his throat. “ _Oh.”_

“Yes.” Izaya’s whole face is warm; he’s glad, again, for the lack of audience for this particular conversation. “Just keep it in mind, if I should happen to come to mind.” He turns on his heel to pace back across the floor towards his computer, making a show of looking at the clock without seeing the time at all. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo sighs. “ _Yeah, I should. We’ll be heading back out pretty soon here.”_

“Go away then,” Izaya says as casually as he can. “Give me a call if you happen to think of it.”

“ _I will.”_ There’s a breath of a pause as Shizuo hesitates over a response; then: “ _I’ll talk to you later.”_

“Sure,” Izaya says. “Bye.” And he pulls his phone away to hang up before he can linger over the sound of Shizuo ending the call. He’s turning as quickly as he does, stepping forward to drop his phone on the edge of his desk and setle back into his seat in front of his computer so he can return to his work.

It’s hard to focus. Izaya’s thoughts keep sliding sideways, winding around the sound of Shizuo’s voice and the purr of his laughter; he stares at one message for almost a minute before he realizes he’s thinking about Ikebukuro, wondering what restaurant Shizuo is in and how he might be able to route himself through the city streets to force an accidental meeting. Izaya grimaces at his own sentimentality, closes the message without reading it at all, and is just clicking to open another when there’s a chime from his phone at the edge of the desk.

His attention pulls aside at once, his thoughts skip immediately to the subject of his own idle daydreams. It’s absurd to expect more so soon, to have his wishes so instantly repaid; but hope isn’t so easily crushed, or maybe it’s some mirror of that sixth sense Shizuo has always seemed to have for Izaya’s presence, that when Izaya draws his phone in towards him he’s not even surprised by the name displayed on the screen.

“What do you want?” he asks. “I thought you were going to go get back to work.”

“ _I was.”_ Shizuo doesn’t even sound particularly apologetic, just like he’s considering the question; as if he’s unsure of his answer in the moments before he can actually form it to coherency. “ _You said I could call you when I was thinking about you.”_

“I said that _five minutes_ ago,” Izaya says. “You can’t _possibly_ think about me that often.” There’s a pause, a moment of silence that rings with the force of Shizuo’s silent non-response. Izaya’s skin prickles with something like electricity, a shimmer of heat sliding itself into place across his shoulders like it’s fitting against him. There’s another breath of quiet, of silence that speaks as loudly as words, until it’s Izaya who swallows and speaks, far more softly than before, like he’s whispering against the shell of Shizuo’s ear. “Do you?”

Shizuo clears his throat hard enough that Izaya can feel the rasp of the sound like a touch. “ _If you’re too busy I can go. But you_ did _say I could.”_

“Oh.” Izaya blinks at the far wall of his apartment without seeing it at all for a moment; then he ducks his head forward and braces his free elbow at the edge of the desk so he can reach up and push his hand through his hair. “I didn’t think it’d be so _soon_.”

“ _Yeah.”_ Shizuo pauses for a moment before clearing his throat with some measure of effort. “ _I meant it. I think about you all the time.”_

Izaya huffs a shaky laugh without lifting his head from where he’s tipped in over the edge of his desk. “We’re never going to get any work done,” he mumbles, more to himself than for Shizuo’s hearing.

Shizuo sucks in a sharp breath. “ _If you want me to go--”_

“ _No_ ,” Izaya says, faster and more sharply than he meant to, and Shizuo’s words fall to silence at once. Izaya presses his lips together and swallows with deliberate intention before he attempts to speak again. “No. I don’t--” He shakes his head and ducks in farther over the desk. “Don’t go.”

Shizuo huffs an exhale. “ _Okay.”_ There’s another pause of quiet in the space between them; then, carefully, with the words as gentle as a touch: “ _Can I see you tonight?”_

Izaya presses his hand to the back of his neck with force enough as if to steady himself as he ducks far forward like he has anyone at all from whom to hide the smile at his lips. His skin is shivering with the impossibility of the moment, with instinctive rejection of the reality that he has somehow toppled himself into, as if he’s wandered into the structure of a daydream that refuses to give way; but he can hear Shizuo’s breathing against the receiver at his ear, and he can feel the dull ache of the bruise of Shizuo’s mouth pressing at the side of his neck, and somewhere in the space of his chest something that has only ever been cold with resignation is starting to stir, fluttering itself into the beginnings of hope in spite of his best attempts to urge it down, and he knows what he’s going to say.

“Yes,” Izaya says, and leans forward entirely to collapse against the support of his arm at the desk before him as he bites his lip against the strain of the smile breaking over his face. “Yes, Shizu-chan. You can see me tonight.”

Trust doesn’t come naturally to him, but Izaya thinks he could learn the shape of it just from the sound of Shizuo’s voice at his ear.


	3. Focused

Shizuo wasn’t expecting to feel this self-conscious at Izaya’s apartment.

It’s not as if this his first time being here. Even before his last dramatic visit, he’s climbed the stairs to the top floor of the Shinjuku complex a half-dozen times, has dented the metal of the door with his fist and shouted incoherent demands against the resistance of the barrier. He never hesitated in making his way here after some particularly irritating event in Ikebukuro; the thought of tracking Izaya down for what relief the outline of a fight can give never gave him pause, before. Even on his last visit, when he paced over the length of streets between Shinra’s apartment and Izaya’s with the weight of a phone burdening his pocket as much as the knowledge of what was contained within it burdened his thoughts, it wasn’t the idea of being at Izaya’s residence that tightened his chest with adrenaline and forced his breathing tight on nerves. Shizuo has never waited for an invitation to Izaya’s home at any point over the last years with no more than the outline of hatred to merit his actions; now, with the structure of a relationship forming itself around the careful dance of their interactions, surely his presence is only the more welcome.

It’s exactly that title, Shizuo thinks, that is causing the problem. It was easier before, however frustrating Izaya’s presence may have been in Shizuo’s life; there was never any question of how to react, never even a chance for Shizuo to really think about his response before anger was surging over him to tear Izaya’s name free from his chest and reach his arms to clutch for the weight of that dark jacket and that knife-edge smile always just out of reach, always flashing too bright to quite be grasped. Things were simpler, then, however irritating the constant denial of satisfaction may have proven; now, with the memory of desire smouldering fire in the line of Shizuo’s shoulders and burning heat into his veins, he has no idea at all how to go about even asking for what he wants.

His only comfort, and it’s a meager one, is that Izaya seems to be no better. He met Shizuo at the door as quickly as the other rapped his knuckles against the weight, pulling it open with such speed that Shizuo had to wonder if the other had been pacing over the entryway awaiting his arrival, but no sooner had Shizuo stepped through the entrance than Izaya was darting away, as if falling back into his old habits of retreat even after issuing the invitation in the first place. He was around the corner in the kitchen by the time Shizuo had left his shoes in the entryway and collected the nerve to step forward into the space of the apartment that has never seemed so threatening as when it’s filled with as much possibility as it holds now, and even after issuing a painful-bright suggestion for Shizuo to make himself comfortable Izaya has done nothing but the opposite in his own self. He’s been pacing over the span of the kitchen, fiddling with cups and the stove as he makes the tea he more told Shizuo he’d prepare than offered, until Shizuo’s own body is taut with more tension from holding himself still than if he were moving across the span of the tiled floor alongside Izaya himself.

“Do you want any help?” Shizuo asks now, more because he doesn’t know what else he can say than because he really thinks Izaya will take him up on it. He’s offered twice already, once before he even sat down and again a minute ago, but Izaya isn’t looking at him and Shizuo feels too uncomfortable calling a conversation across the distance of the apartment to force meaningless words past the nervous expectation in him. He feels like there’s a storm in the air, as if the expansive space around them is crackling with the electricity of the anticipation they must both be sharing with the shape of it formed in Izaya’s original suggestion for Shizuo to come over, and he can’t stand to hold still and wait for the lightning to strike him.

Izaya shakes his head with force enough that Shizuo can see it clearly even from his position from the edge of the couch in the living room. “No need,” he says in such a bright tone that it sets Shizuo’s teeth on the falsehood of it. “I’ve got everything under control.” He rattles something against the counter, a saucer, maybe, or the weight of a canister of tea, as if to underscore the distraction of what he’s doing. “You’re my guest. Just make yourself comfortable in the meantime. There’s plenty to look at, feel free to investigate anything you like.”

Shizuo frowns at the line of Izaya’s shoulders under the thin of his shirt. “I didn’t come here to see your house,” he says, feeling the words rumble over the edge of frustration in his chest. “I came here to see _you_.”

Izaya laughs bright and clear and false as a mockingbird. Shizuo’s fingers tighten towards his palms, curling into the outline of fists before he makes a conscious effort to ease them. “How doting of you,” Izaya says, tipping his head so Shizuo can see his face in profile for a moment before he looks back to what he’s doing at the counter. “I’ll be right over, Shizu-chan. Surely you can amuse yourself for a few minutes alone, can’t you?”

Shizuo draws a deep breath through his nose and lets it out, struggling to work past the tension in his shoulders with conscious intent. “Izaya--”

“Patience is a virtue,” Izaya says, speaking loud and fast enough to break off Shizuo’s words as if at the edge of a knife. “Just stay there like a good boy and I’ll have the tea done in a minute.”

Shizuo’s temper gives way at once, knotting into his shoulders and flexing at his thighs to draw him to his full height before he’s even decided he wants to get up off the couch. He feels like there’s fire crackling over him, strain coursing through the whole of his body as it seeks an outlet of violence or shouting or destruction; but Izaya’s back is still turned to him, his attention fixed on the counter instead of locked on the weight of Shizuo’s eyes. There’s something about the trust of that, of seeing Izaya’s back and the dark of his hair instead of the razor-edge bright of his gaze, that unravels Shizuo’s habitual temper into something else, something he can feel shifting to a new form under his skin even as he stares at Izaya’s shoulders. He gazes at the other for a moment, feeling the pressure work across his skin like the friction in the air is skittering under his clothes, dragging the illusion of a touch over him to raise the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck with static even with Izaya at the distance he is; and then he sets his jaw and steps forward to come around the edge of the coffee table and towards the kitchen.

Izaya doesn’t turn as Shizuo approaches. It might be a matter of stubbornness, refusing to grant the other the satisfaction of eye contact even as the distance between them evaporates; maybe he really is just that caught up in what he’s doing, that he doesn’t hear the giveaway of Shizuo’s footsteps or the rustle of his clothes. Shizuo doesn’t care much either way, in practice; all he really cares about is decreasing that space between them, and if Izaya won’t come to him that leaves his course of action clear enough, at least for the next few seconds.

Izaya is fiddling with the teacups as Shizuo draws close enough to see around the wall the other has made of his shoulders, toying with a spoon set atop one saucer as if arranging it for a photograph. His head is ducked forward, his hair falling dark in front of his face; he doesn’t look up as Shizuo comes alongside him, doesn’t show any sign of noticing the other’s presence as Shizuo draws to a stop and reaches out to touch at Izaya’s arm.

“Izaya,” he says, speaking at the same time his hand brushes against the other’s sleeve, and Izaya jumps so badly the spoon clatters out of his grip and over the counter as he twists into movement. It’s a fast reaction, the speed of it familiar to Shizuo from those fights in Ikebukuro twilight; but his hand is already at Izaya’s sleeve, and when his fingers tighten in answering surprise they close hard around the other’s arm to stall his motion half-formed. Izaya’s jerk back only pulls against the restraint of Shizuo’s unthinking hold and draws him around to face the other as he lifts his head to stare wide-eyed into Shizuo’s face over his. For a moment they’re far closer than Shizuo meant for them to be, Izaya’s dark eyes blown wide on shock and his usual smirk chased away into soft surprise; in the first heartbeat of shared adrenaline Shizuo’s skin goes hot with possibility as some instinct responds involuntarily to the invitation of those lips and the surprise in those eyes. His gaze drops, flickering between Izaya’s dark-lashed gaze and the soft heat of his mouth, and when his breath rushes out of him it’s in a gust that nearly catches to a groan at the back of his throat.

“Sorry,” he manages, rasping over the word on his tongue. His fingers tighten reflexively and he realizes he’s still holding Izaya’s arm; he lets his grip go at once but then doesn’t know what to do with his hand. He can’t quite find it in him to pull away, to give Izaya the space to bolt when every instinct in him is growling to close the distance, to restrain the other within the span of his strength; he ends up keeping his hand outstretched instead, hovering in the space over Izaya’s shoulder like he’s expecting to have to catch the other from a fall. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You did,” Izaya says, but there’s no edge on his voice at all. He’s speaking softly, almost in a whisper; Shizuo can see his lips press together, can see the flex of heat in his throat as he swallows in an effort for clarity before letting his hip jut to the side and rocking his weight in towards the the counter. He reaches out to touch at the edge of the support, his fingers fumbling in midair before he can lay hand to the surface, but he doesn’t look away from Shizuo’s gaze on him. “I guess obedience was too much to ask of a monster, huh?”

“Don’t,” Shizuo says, the rejection more reflex than true anger. His shoulders are still tense, his heart is still thrumming, but it’s not really anger in him now any more than it was when he came through the door. The tension is the same, the strain building in his body climbing to a peak that is enough to crush metal and splinter wood, cast into the right channels; but his fingers are hovering open over Izaya’s shoulder instead of curling to a fist, and the pressure in his chest refuses to fit itself into the familiar force of a growl. Shizuo grimaces against the strain and shakes his head to try to shed some of its effect. “Stop avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you,” Izaya repeats, with a breathlessness on his voice that Shizuo thinks might be intended as a laugh, if he had mustered more volume to surge behind the words. “I’m not--” and Shizuo’s hand brushes his shoulder, and Izaya’s whole body goes tense enough to break off his speech unfinished at his lips.

Shizuo keeps his touch gentle, keeps his fingers light as they press against the seam of Izaya’s shirt like he’s investigating the fabric more than gauging the strain of tension beneath it. “I thought you were done lying to me.”

Izaya’s exhale is a shudder more than a sigh. Shizuo can feel it run through the whole of his body like a spark flaring to an open flame. “Old habits die hard,” he says, still in that strange, strained tone. His hip cants farther to the side, until Shizuo thinks it must be only the support of the counter alongside him still keeping Izaya on his feet at all. “Or maybe I’m just looking for another reminder of what you’ll do if I try.”

Shizuo doesn’t need the cast of Izaya’s gaze coming up through the dark of his lashes to call to mind the gasp of breathing in the other’s throat, the tremoring strain in his arms and against the fists of his fingers clinging to the bedsheets under him as lies broke open to give way to the heat of honesty, mistruths cracking beneath Shizuo’s grip to spill honesty past Izaya’s lips in time with pleasure striping hot over his bare stomach. The thought still tenses at the small of Shizuo’s back and flexes his thighs, straining through his whole body for a moment of desire so clear it hits with the force of a blow, and when his breath gives way from the surge of strain it comes as a groan in truth, this time, with no space to mistake it for anything else. “Do you _need_ reminding?”

Izaya’s mouth curves onto a smile, the shape of it familiar heat in Shizuo’s veins even with the strange uncertainty behind his eyes. “Not particularly,” he allows. His hand at his side comes up to touch against Shizuo’s vest; his fingers are gentle against the fabric, barely offering enough weight for Shizuo to feel the contact at all. “That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the sequel.” His lashes dip, his head tilts. “Aren’t you?”

Shizuo swallows with some effort. “Yeah.”

“At last,” Izaya drawls. “Something we can agree on” and he’s lifting his hand from Shizuo’s vest and up to wind his fingers against the back of the other’s neck so he can urge Shizuo down against him. The gesture is proprietary and haughty with self-assurance, but Shizuo is coming in so fast Izaya doesn’t have time to pull before he’s pressing his mouth against the other’s with sudden force. Izaya makes a sound against Shizuo’s lips, a note of surprise, maybe, or maybe just satisfaction, but Shizuo is opening his mouth as fast as their lips meet and even the tension of Izaya’s smile against him in no real resistance. Izaya’s fingers slide into Shizuo’s hair, Izaya’s tongue catches to slide past Shizuo’s lips, and Shizuo is leaning in without thinking, tipping forward in search of resistance as Izaya curves back in overt surrender. They stumble back by a step, turning against Izaya’s hold on the counter until Shizuo runs them up against it, and Shizuo’s hand is reaching as fast as Izaya’s fingers tighten in his hair to catch and steady against the dip between the other’s shoulderblades. It’s easier to push when he’s holding Izaya steady, when his strength is featuring on both side of the equation to brace Izaya still between the catch of his hands and the force of his mouth, and Izaya is giving way as immediately as Shizuo reaches for more, handing over his balance to Shizuo’s hands as the other struggles for Izaya’s head and clutches at the back of his belt instead. Shizuo can’t really feel the force of Izaya’s pull against him except as a drag against his clothes but it doesn’t make a difference in any case, because his hips are coming forward as fast as his shoulders came down, rocking in to catch and pin Izaya back to the edge of the counter with force enough to rattle the teacups against the surface. Izaya groans into Shizuo’s mouth with heat enough to make the noise explicit encouragement, and Shizuo doesn’t need the reassurance to guide his movement forward against Izaya’s body.

It takes Shizuo a minute to notice the whistling sound ringing in his ears. His attention is elsewhere, wandering between the taste of Izaya’s mouth against his tongue and the flex of his thigh between Izaya’s knees and the heat of bare skin under his fingertips, where he’s got a hand up under the loose fall of Izaya’s shirt. It’s Izaya who finally reacts, twisting his head to break away from Shizuo’s mouth with a gasp as raw as if he’s surfacing from underwater, and Shizuo is pressing his mouth against the sharp edge of the other’s jaw with helpless force when Izaya pants “The kettle” as if words are anything Shizuo can spare attention for right now. “Shizu-chan, the stove.”

Shizuo growls against the side of Izaya’s neck, over the rhythm of the other’s hammering pulse, before he finally parses the high screech of escaping steam and curiosity overcomes the distracting taste of Izaya’s skin against his lips. He raises his head at once, frowning confusion before he remembers where he is, and what Izaya was doing, and loosens his grip enough for Izaya to wiggle sideways and stretch for the stove. His fingers catch at the knob for the burner and struggle for traction before he manages to click it off; Shizuo gives up the hold he’s claimed at Izaya’s hip to reach out for the handle of the kettle and shove it back and off the still-hot burner. Izaya gusts a sigh of relief as the whistle fades and gives way to nothing more distracting than a plume of steam rising from the kettle’s spout before he ducks forward to press his forehead hard to Shizuo’s shoulder.

“I should have known better,” he says, speaking as if to himself but more than loudly enough for Shizuo to hear every word clearly. “It would have been better to take you upstairs first thing instead of trying to play nice.”

Shizuo huffs an exhale of protest. “I _want_ to spend time with you,” he growls. “Not just fall into bed together as soon as I come in the door.”

Shizuo can’t see Izaya roll his eyes but the reaction is clear in the overly patient tone of his voice. “You don’t have to leave as soon as we’re finished,” he points out before he lifts his head to look up and meet Shizuo’s gaze once more. “It’s not as if I’m going to kick you out the moment you’ve satisfied me. If you want to play boyfriends we can do that just as well after we’ve worked out some tension as before.”

Izaya is mocking the idea, that much is clear without needing the aid of the quirk at the corner of his mouth to give him away. He’s dismissing the possibility at his lips as quickly as he gives it, offering it and brushing it aside in the same breath; but Shizuo has his hands bracing Izaya still in front of him, and it’s a lot harder to skip away from a thought when they’re pressed close enough together that Shizuo can hear every rasp of Izaya’s breathing in his chest. His fingers tighten against Izaya’s back, his hold closing tight to keep them together, and when he gusts an exhale the growl of frustration on the sound is as loud against Izaya’s mouth as Shizuo can feel it in his own chest.

“I want to,” Shizuo says, speaking clearly enough that he doesn’t fumble over the words even when Izaya’s shoulders tighten against his hold as the other reels back to stare up at him. “I do want to spend time with you.” He scowls through the confusion in his head as he struggles for words. “Not just...in bed.”

Izaya stares up at him for a moment. There’s no expression on his face at all for a span of heartbeats; even the usual smirk that has so fired Shizuo’s blood in the past is absent, wiped clean as if hidden behind a mask. It’s only his eyes that are still focused, as they fix on Shizuo’s face like he’s trying to read some hidden meaning from the other’s words beyond overt honesty, until finally Shizuo watches a crease form at Izaya’s forehead the moment before he huffs into a laugh that is as much a question as a response.

“Alright,” he says, still sounding as hesitant as if this is the first time he’s hearing this, as if Shizuo isn’t repeating the same thing he’s been saying since that first enlightening night when he came through the door with a cell phone in his hand and left with the ringing weight of epiphany in his head and the echo of _love_ on his tongue. Izaya’s lashes dip, his head tilts. “Just to be clear, you _are_ interested in the bedroom part of things as well, right?”

Shizuo’s jaw flexes on pressure. It’s a weak effort to push back against the surge of heat that courses through his body to tense at his shoulders and strain his thighs; he still has to swallow deliberately to fight himself back to enough clarity to speak, and even then his voice is rough and low as if with the old anger that has so abandoned him lately. “Yeah.” He coughs hard and turns his head to fix his gaze on Izaya’s shoulder instead of the too-much intent of the other’s eyes. “Very interested.”

Izaya shudders an exhale. “Okay,” he says, with enough ease on his words that Shizuo glances back to his face. Izaya’s smiling again, his lips curving onto the usual grin that Shizuo remembers too clearly from years of experience, but it’s different, somehow, or maybe it’s Shizuo that’s different, for the angle of it to look so much more like an invitation than an insult, for the dark of Izaya’s eyes to flicker with something closer to hope than to hate. “Let’s start with that, at least.” His back arches, his body curving to lean hard against the support of Shizuo’s hand at him. “You can do whatever you want after that. Stay the night, even, if you feel like it.”

That’s teasing too. Shizuo can see it in the angle of Izaya’s mouth, can hear it in the lilt of Izaya’s voice. But the words fall clear all the same, dropping like pebbles into the pool of Shizuo’s awareness, and he can feel the weight of them knot into a sudden ache of want as desperate as it is abrupt in the breath between Izaya’s speech and Shizuo’s sharp-caught inhale of reaction.

“Can I?” He’s speaking too fast, leaning in too close; Izaya has to clutch at his shoulder to keep from falling right on top of the cups he set out on the counter, and Shizuo can see the cut of his smile flicker into startled panic for a moment before Shizuo’s hold steadies. But Shizuo can’t let the thought go, can’t even restrain himself enough to loosen his too-tight grip that holds Izaya in against him even as his fingers at the other’s hip catch and dig into the weight of bruises against Izaya’s skin. “I want to stay.”

Izaya laughs, a little weak on confusion but sincere enough for all that. “Okay,” he says. “Sure, Shizu-chan. Fuck me into my bed and I’ll deign to let you stay there for the night.”

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat, heat without anger pouring rough over his tongue. It feels strange to have the one but not the other; it tastes sweet as vanilla against his lips.

“Good,” he says, and then he’s pulling, drawing Izaya in against him with one hand while he lifts against the grip he has at the other’s hip. It’s not a great hold but it doesn’t need to be: compared to the cement-and-steel resistance of street signs, Izaya’s weight is so minimal Shizuo barely notices the burden as he lifts the other up off the floor. Izaya’s not offering any kind of resistance either; rather he’s bracing his elbows up around Shizuo’s shoulders, holding to the support of the other’s body as Shizuo moves them back and away from the counter so he can head for the stairs he climbed with such frustrated haste on his last visit. It’s an easier ascent this time, even with the distraction of Izaya breathing hot against his neck instead of draped into passivity over his shoulder; Shizuo feels like he’s glowing with anticipation instead of frustration, this time, and the tension in his body is the strain of desire more than the familiar ache of muscles flexing anger-taut over much-broken bone. It’s a strange feeling, as uncanny in its own way as the feel of Izaya in his hold instead of skimming past the reach of his fingers, as the gust of breathing against his skin instead of spilling to mockery at the far end of some Ikebukuro alley, and Shizuo thinks he would be delighted to make the trade of one for the other a dozen times over, if he could.

There’s no uncertainty when he comes through the door to Izaya’s bedroom. It ought to be nerve-wracking, ought to be a case for his self-consciousness to spike higher than anywhere else in the house, but Shizuo’s focus is narrowing, his body is falling into the action of instinct instead of conscious thought, and with that to guide him there’s no space for hesitation. He strides forward across the space of the floor, the room as echoingly expansive as the rest of the apartment, and by the time he’s dropping Izaya to the give of the bed his attention has narrowed to the span of the mattress and the man atop it without consideration for the minimal furniture that is failing to really fill the rest of the room. It’s not important right now, any more than the rest of the city around them used to be important when he caught a glimpse of Izaya from across an overpass, or at a railing, or behind a window, and Shizuo has always known what to do when he has Izaya in his sights.

Izaya doesn’t run away from him this time. He’s sprawled over his bed, his arms spread wide over the sheets as if to make an offering of himself for Shizuo leaning over him, but when Shizuo tips in Izaya is moving out too, pushing up onto an elbow and reaching out with his free hand to slide his fingers against the back of Shizuo’s neck and brace himself against the other’s approach. His lashes dip as Shizuo ducks over him, his gaze sliding down Shizuo’s features with as much uncertain attention as if he’s trying to secure proof of the other’s presence even with the form of him under his fingers, but Shizuo doesn’t wait for Izaya to find whatever evidence he needs. He’s sure of his own existence, and his hand at Izaya’s waist is enough to hold the other steady, and when he ducks in to catch Izaya’s mouth with his he’s happy to shut his eyes to give up sight in exchange for focus on the rest of his senses instead.

It’s strange to have such control. Izaya gives way as fast as Shizuo urges him back, the brace of his elbow buckling to fold him to the sheets where Shizuo can pin him in place, can hold him still against the possibility of retreat that seems the farthest thing from Izaya’s mind, given the hold he’s clinging to in Shizuo’s hair and against the back of the other’s shirt. But it’s not just Izaya, not just suddenly having presence when there has been nothing but air before: Shizuo’s body, too, does as he wishes, obeys the commands of his thoughts with a grace as if all it has ever wanted are these orders. Shizuo’s fingers push up under Izaya’s shirt without leaving so much as a bruise, his mouth draws no more than flushing color to Izaya’s lips; even when his touch falls to close against the buckle of the other’s belt it comes open without a protest from the leather or the metal either one. It’s a dizzying feeling, to be so certain of himself, to feel so entirely at home in the space of the body that has always been too-much, before; and under him Izaya is arching up to meet him, his hips rising off the bed and his fingers clutching at Shizuo’s neck and his breathing coming fast enough to make a plea for itself even before Shizuo frees his mouth to hear the gasp of air in the other’s throat. The edge in Izaya’s stare is blunted by heat, when Shizuo lifts his head to look at him, his gaze knocked wide and endless-dark on want to leave no space for machination at all. Shizuo unlatches the weight of Izaya’s belt, and drags open the button and zipper between him and the other’s body, and when he urges his fingers inside the weight of the fabric the shudder that breaks over Izaya’s expression is mirrored in full in the tremor in his body, in the arc of his hips and the flex of his fingers, and Shizuo has never seen him look so honest.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, meaning to offer something more, something articulate and hot enough to merit the effort of finding words, but the clarity of his thought gives way and all he has at his lips is a groan of heat to answer the flutter of Izaya’s lashes as Shizuo’s fingers push down to grind against him. Izaya’s hot to the touch, hard against the thin layer of his briefs even before Shizuo palms in against him, and Shizuo is reminded again of that first day, against the wall by Izaya’s front door, when his every touch collapsed Izaya’s facade into desperation so open and wanting even a decade’s worth of lies couldn’t mask it. He pushes down farther, seeking out more contact, more closeness, reaching to bridge the gap between them that has always seemed so insurmountable, and Izaya’s lips part, Izaya’s throat works as his head falls back to the pillow and his fingers tighten at Shizuo’s neck. It still seems impossible, even after days to consider the reality of this, with uncounted phone calls and the length of a meal framed into the structure of a date, but there’s no deception in the sound Izaya is making under the touch of Shizuo’s hand, and there’s no space for mistake with just a thin layer of fabric between their bodies. Shizuo looks down, feeling dizzy with the heat in his veins, with the tension aching along his spine, and it’s as he sees the loose weight of his open cuff at his wrist that he realizes his advantage, that he parses the too-much barrier between them.

“Oh,” he says, blurting the word with more haste than he intended, and he draws his touch free. Izaya whines with the loss and opens his eyes to give Shizuo a look with something of his old bite under it, but Shizuo is rocking back without waiting to gauge the other’s reaction to the loss of contact between them. He grabs at the edge of Izaya’s pants as the first goal, since they’re already half-open and doing nothing more effective than keeping the other’s legs covered, but he’s fumbling for the buttons at his vest even as Izaya draws his feet up and free of the slacks so Shizuo can drop them to the floor. Shizuo pulls at his shirt as soon as his vest is open, undoing the row of buttons down the front without bothering to shed the first layer; he’s halfway down the line of them when Izaya pushes himself to sit up and slide towards the edge of the bed to reach for where Shizuo is standing. His attentions turn to Shizuo’s belt and sliding the length free of the metal clasp with uncanny speed; Izaya has Shizuo’s pants loose and down his hips while Shizuo is still unfastening the last of the buttons on his shirt so he can strip tie and shirt and vest from his shoulders all at once. Izaya’s hands come to catch at his hips as Shizuo’s slacks slide free, his grip bracing tight as he pulls as if to guide Shizuo in towards him as the other kicks his feet free of the burden of his clothes, and Izaya’s grip isn’t enough to force Shizuo into anything but Shizuo isn’t looking to resist anyway. He’s leaning in and down, bracing himself with a hand at the mattress alongside Izaya’s hip while he grabs at a handful of the other’s shirt, and Izaya catches his legs around Shizuo’s hips to brace them in place before he frees his grip and lifts his arms to duck free of the weight of his shirt. He emerges from the neckline with his hair rumpled around his face, the sleek dark of it tangled as if by desperate fingers seeking purchase against the locks, and Shizuo can’t fight back against the suggestion the appearance makes to his own overheated thoughts. He pushes his fingers into Izaya’s hair, feeling the strands part silk-smooth against his skin as he cradles the back of the other’s head to turn Izaya’s mouth up to his own, and when he ducks in to press Izaya back with the force of a kiss his hand is there to steady and ease the other’s movement back to the bed.

It’s better with fewer clothes. Shizuo can feel every reflexive tremor that runs through Izaya under him with the cover of the other’s shirt and pants stripped free of his body; with only his undershirt and boxers to cover his own motion, Shizuo thinks they might be pressing nearer now than even last time, when he still had the barrier of his clothes tangled around his body even as he pressed Izaya’s legs apart to make space for himself between them. He can feel Izaya’s heart pounding in his chest, like this, can press his hand to the bare curve of the other’s back and urge Izaya up into an arch that pins them close together at hips and shoulder and stomach, where Shizuo’s shirt has hitched up to bare a few inches of skin to glow heat against Izaya’s at his own. The thin of their underwear is hardly a barrier at all, when Shizuo can feel Izaya hot against him right through the fabric and can grind down to fit himself at the sharp angle of the other’s hip; when he drops his hand down from Izaya’s back his fingers find the give of the other’s ass under his hold, his grip pressing in to savour the soft of the curve as much as to hitch Izaya’s hips desperate-close to his own. Izaya’s thighs flex where they’re wrapped around Shizuo’s waist, Izaya’s lips part to spill a groan from the back of his throat up and into Shizuo’s waiting mouth, and Shizuo thinks the whole world could have disappeared and he wouldn’t even have noticed the loss, so long as he has Izaya tense with quivering desire beneath the press of his body.

Shizuo doesn’t know how long they stay like that. It’s hard to think himself to clarity of purpose, even with the aching want of his cock to urge him on to it; there’s satisfaction enough to be had in grinding against Izaya’s body underneath him, to catching the groans of unfeigned pleasure in Izaya’s throat under his lips. Izaya’s whole body is straining beneath Shizuo, cresting up into an arc of desperate want like he’s a wave trying to break himself against the shore of Shizuo’s presence; Shizuo can feel the pattern of Izaya’s heart pounding in the other’s chest, can taste the salt of sweat forming against the dark of his shining hair and slick at the indentation of his collarbone. His hands find Izaya’s hip, thigh, urging the other up off the bed and bracing him close against Shizuo over him while Shizuo breathes in against the line of Izaya’s neck and kisses at the flex of his shoulder, tasting the heat of what was always frustration, before, that feels like tight-knotting electricity in him now.

Izaya’s fingers catch at Shizuo’s hair, closing to a fist against the bleached-pale locks. “Shizu-chan,” he says, with strain enough on his tone to catch Shizuo’s attention and lift his head from where he’s burning his mouth to glow against the heat under Izaya’s skin. Izaya’s head is angled down, his gaze pinned to Shizuo over him even before Shizuo lifts his head to look up and meet the other’s eyes; his lashes are dark enough to shadow the color of his irises to black enough to match the weight of his hair. His mouth is open, his lips flushed to crimson by want and the friction of Shizuo’s mouth; Shizuo’s attention clings to the damp there as Izaya presses his lips together so he can swallow hard and fight back to something like clarity. “Were you planning on doing anything more than groping me for the rest of the night?” The words are sharp in meaning but shaky in tone; Izaya’s lashes flutter even as he gives them voice, like he’s struggling to hold the thought clear in his head. “Or are you taking a new approach of trying to kill me with teasing, now?”

Shizuo frowns and eases some fraction of the force he’s holding against the quiver of the other’s thigh. “I’m not teasing you, Izaya.”

“I beg to differ,” Izaya says at once, and punctuates with an upward motion of his hips to grind himself against the resistance of Shizuo’s body. “I’m all for you having your way with me but I had something a little more literal in mind when I thought about you pinning me to the bed.”

Shizuo huffs an exhale. “I’m getting there. What’s the rush? I thought you wanted me to spend the night anyway.”

Izaya’s cheeks color, Izaya’s lips tighten. “I said you _could_ stay the night,” he says, with more haughty pretension than Shizuo thought would be possible for a man stripped down to skin glowing with want and the strain of his cock pressing hard against the elastic of his underwear. “My own desires never came up.”

Shizuo scoffs. “Fine,” he says. “What do _you_ want, then, Izaya?”

“Right now?” Izaya asks with deliberate misunderstanding. “Like I’ve been telling you, Shizu-chan, I want you to fuck me into my bed until I can’t think straight. You seemed pretty clear on the mechanics of that last time, but if you want a more detailed description…”

“Okay,” Shizuo says, before Izaya can go on. Izaya closes his mouth hard on his speech, his eyes going wide at this complete agreement, and Shizuo takes the opportunity to take a breath and go on. “Do you want me to stay afterward?”

Izaya stares up at him. There’s something unreadable behind his eyes, a darkness that Shizuo can’t make sense of even with years of experience to go on, but his mouth is softer than Shizuo has ever seen it before as he gazes up at the other. Finally he takes a breath and tosses his head back against the pillows. “Depends on how well you handle the first part.”

Shizuo snorts but there’s something of amusement under the sound, more than the familiar edge of anger that would have been there before. It feels better than he expected it to. “Alright,” he says, and lifts his gaze from Izaya’s face to frown at the room around them. He recognizes almost nothing -- another point to speak to the focus that so gripped him when he was here last -- but when his gaze lights on the table alongside the bed he moves at once, carried forward by memory cast into the shape of instinct by the heat in his veins.

“Top drawer,” Izaya says as Shizuo braces a hand at the edge of the bed and leans over to reach, but Shizuo doesn’t need the instruction. He remembers this, even if only through the haze of intensity that so gripped him last time he couldn’t tell the difference between the strain of gratified victory at the back of his head and the ache of desire straining at his cock; he’s reaching for the bottle inside as quickly as the drawer comes open and straightening to kneel at the end of the bed as he works the lid free. Izaya braces his heels against the bed to arch himself off the support and push his thumbs down under his briefs; they come down his thighs at once, stripped loose with such grace that Shizuo has only just looked back to frown at Izaya by the time the other is drawing his feet free of the elastic.

“Hey,” Shizuo growls with frustrated heat that is only partially put-on. “I wanted to do that.”

Izaya raises an eyebrow at him as he turns onto his side to toss the clothing over the edge of the bed. “Did you?” he says, with something of his old teasing back under his voice. “Don’t worry, Shizu-chan, next time I’ll let you undress me like a bride on her wedding night.” He rolls over onto his stomach on the bed, bracing his knees down against the sheets to cant his hips up into an open invitation as he pillows his head against the support of his crossed arms. “For now why don’t you put those fingers of yours to better use?”

Shizuo doesn’t bother answering aloud. Izaya’s looking back over his shoulder, his lashes casting shadows over his gaze and his back curving into deliberate seduction, and Shizuo’s never been very good at resisting Izaya’s temptations. He huffs heat in the back of his throat now, feeling the familiar burn of strain rising in him in answer to the taunt of those eyes, but when he reaches out it’s with an open hand instead of a fist, and when his touch slides against the dip of Izaya’s back Shizuo can feel the other shudder with the friction instead of flinching back and away again. Shizuo urges his palm down over Izaya’s skin, pressing hard enough that he can feel the line of the other’s spine against his palm, can feel the tension in Izaya’s body when he spreads his fingers wide to brace him flush to the bed, but he doesn’t need the support of his hand to hold Izaya still. Izaya is arching up to meet his touch, his thighs flexing like he’s trying to urge Shizuo’s fingers to press against him the sooner, and all Shizuo has to do is reach out to urge the wet in and over the strain of Izaya’s body. Izaya’s lashes shift, dipping over the clarity of his gaze as his shoulders tense and his breath tightens on anticipation, and Shizuo pushes up and into him with the same motion, before Izaya can find the breath to make a more vocal demand. Izaya tightens around him, his exhale straining into something like a moan as Shizuo’s touch comes into him, but Shizuo has his palm against the other’s back and wet to ease his motion, and he keeps moving, rocking up and in until he has the whole length of his middle finger inside the tension of Izaya’s body. He lingers there for a moment, letting the heat hum under his skin, feeling Izaya tightening and easing around him with reflexive tremors, and then he draws back halfway, working slow through the motion to give Izaya time to gasp a breath before he thrusts back to his full depth again.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, speaking carefully so he can linger over the sound of the other’s name on his tongue. He eases the force of his bracing hand -- his touch is moving more readily now, he doesn’t need the weight to lock Izaya still against the bed -- and draws his palm down instead to feel out the dip just at the base of Izaya’s spine, right where the flex of his back curves up to the soft of his ass. Shizuo spreads his fingers wide to reach as much as he can before he tightens his grip on Izaya beneath him. “God, you look good.”

Izaya huffs a breath against the sheets, loud enough that Shizuo can hear the skepticism on it even muffled against the pillows. “I didn’t figure you for the flattering type,” he says, turning his head so he can glance back over his shoulder and fix Shizuo with the dark of his gaze. “You don’t need to bother with compliments, I’m not about to say no at this point.”

“I’m not flattering you,” Shizuo tells him. “I mean it.”

Izaya laughs. “Sure,” he says. “You’ve known me for a decade and you’re only just now noticing what I look like? You’re more oblivious than I thought you were.”

Shizuo groans. “Shut up, Izaya, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Izaya snaps back. “Unless you’re trying to say I get you hard, which has also been previously established.” He dips his lashes into deliberate consideration as his gaze drops from Shizuo’s eyes to the tented front of the other’s boxers. “Although I would be delighted to get clarification on the subject, if you’d rather show than tell.”

“That’s not it either.” Shizuo pushes a little harder on his next thrust than he intended to -- he wants to be gentle, not rough with frustration -- but Izaya just tightens around him and groans over an exhale that carries heat enough to leave no doubt as to his appreciation of the same. Shizuo hesitates for a moment, his palm bracing Izaya’s hips to the bed and his other hand working a steady rhythm into the tension of Izaya’s body; and then he frowns, and squares his shoulders, and leans in to steady himself. His next thrust is firmer, certain instead of sharp, and he’s rewarded immediately with Izaya’s shoulders flexing before him as the other’s fingers clutch for a hold at the sheets like he’s trying to brace himself against even the minimal strain of Shizuo’s single finger working into him.

“I _do_ want you,” Shizuo says. “Like I told you last time. That hasn’t changed.” He huffs a breath that strains itself into the sketch of a laugh. “It’s just more true, if anything. I’ve been thinking about you a lot the last few days.” He eases his hold on Izaya so he can draw his hand across the other again, moving slow to linger over the heat of Izaya’s body, the give of his skin; Izaya’s breath hitches out-of-time with Shizuo’s movement, but he doesn’t try to find words around the rhythm of Shizuo working in him.

“I mean besides that,” Shizuo goes on. He lifts his gaze to meet Izaya’s eyes, where the other is still watching him over the tension of his shoulder. Izaya’s mouth is set, his lips pressed together like he’s bracing himself against whatever Shizuo is going to say, but he doesn’t look away, even when Shizuo draws his touch back almost entirely so he can lay his index finger in against the one he already has inside Izaya’s body. He twists his wrist to adjust his angle, shifting to urge Izaya to open around the press of his second fingertip; when he pushes forward both he and Izaya sigh over an exhale as Shizuo’s paired fingers sink in past the first knuckle. Shizuo urges forward, leaning in to press deeper into the give of Izaya’s body easing for him, but his attention stays fixed on the dark of Izaya’s gaze while he reaches for words to fit around the pressure in his chest, the ache of honesty demanding expression even as he lacks the words to give it form.

“I like watching you.” Shizuo works his fingers back, twisting his wrist to make the retreat a stroke before he pushes back in; Izaya’s lashes flutter but he doesn’t look away from the focus of Shizuo’s eyes on him. “Anytime you’re around it’s like the rest of the world just...disappears, or stops mattering, at least.” He presses down harder against Izaya’s back and moves a little deeper in the thrust of his fingers. “You’re the only thing I can pay attention to.”

“Poetry,” Izaya says with audible strain on the word. His thighs are flexing against the bed beneath him but he’s not pulling away, and Shizuo can watch his lashes dip and flutter with each stroke the other takes into him. “I never would have expected that from you of all people. Have you been...practicing, since we were last here?”

Shizuo shakes his head. “Not just now,” he says, snapping the words more with an intent to insistence than to anger. He couldn’t hold to anger right now anyway, not with his entire body humming in time with the rhythm of the heartbeat he can feel aching in his cock inside his boxers. “All this time. All these years.” Izaya’s lashes dip again, his gaze darkening out-of-time with the work of Shizuo’s fingers, and Shizuo gusts an exhale that tastes like relief and leans forward without thinking to couple the speed of his fingers to the rising haste of his words. “Since high school. Since we met. You take over everything when you’re around.”

“Damn, Shizu-chan,” Izaya manages. “If I had known I already had your attention I wouldn’t have tried so hard to fight for it” but he’s coloring in spite of his flippant tone, his mouth is trembling on some tight-wound emotion Shizuo is sure he isn’t meant to be seeing.

“You did,” Shizuo says, and Izaya shuts his eyes entirely and turns his head down to the sheets under him to hide the expression on his face from Shizuo’s gaze. “You do.” Even with his face hidden there’s no question of Izaya’s response: Shizuo can feel it tightening against his fingers and can watch it flexing against the pale line of Izaya’s shoulders. There’s a press in his chest, a weight enough to draw him in and down, as if Izaya is encompassing all the force of gravity in the slender lines of his body, as if Shizuo’s lungs can’t find air except at the other’s skin, and Shizuo is leaning forward, curving in close over Izaya to press his mouth into a helpless kiss at the crest of shoulderblade taut under the other’s skin. Izaya quivers with the contact even though there’s no force to it at all, as if he’s thrumming with too much tension to be held steady against this outside impact, and Shizuo shudders over a sigh and forces himself to pull up and away while he has the self-restraint to do so.

“Izaya,” he says, drawing the syllables of that familiar name long on his tongue to taste the heat on them, to feel the strange softness that comes with the vowels, now, instead of the grating roar they used to be. The burn is still there, still tensing expectation through every fiber of his body, but it’s desire that is building under his skin instead of rage, the strain a smoulder instead of a flame. Shizuo slides his fingers free of Izaya’s body, feeling the tension in himself even as Izaya is the one who gusts an exhale too soft to draw the line between want and loss, and then he draws his hand away from the other’s back as well, giving up the lingering contact in exchange for more quickly shedding the weight of the clothing that is rapidly becoming an unbearable burden. He strips his shirt off first, dragging it inside-out and over his head to fling aside without attention to where it lands, and his boxers follow in succession as rapidly as he can push at them. His legs come free, the fabric falls forgotten, and Shizuo is leaning in at once, bracing his knees wide into the space between Izaya’s as he settles himself against the bed with a feeling like coming home. His thighs press to the backs of Izaya’s, his hips come in to pin the other down to the bed, and he presses the whole of his weight against the curve of Izaya’s spine, fitting them skin-close as he groans an exhale of relief against the dark of Izaya’s hair.

“Beautiful,” he says, mumbling the words at the back of his throat as he settles himself. He fits his slick hand into the space between his hips and Izaya’s, where the heat of his cock is fitting close into the cleft of Izaya’s ass; he can hear the rasp on Izaya’s breathing falling into pace with the drumbeat of his heart pounding in his chest as he strokes up over himself to coat his length in slick lube before he braces his grip at the base of his shaft. He steadies an elbow at the bed to hold himself up by the few inches he needs to rock his weight back so he can line himself up, and under him Izaya’s body curves to meet him, Izaya’s spine arching to match Shizuo’s action even as the other presses his forehead close against the sheets to hiss over his breathing unseen. Shizuo looks at the dark of his hair, the strain at his neck, the tension making wings of his shoulderblades under his skin, and he loses his breath into a groan of incoherent appreciation. He ducks his head forward to press the heat of his mouth and the sound in his throat to Izaya’s skin, to hold them together with the damp of his lips against that knotting strain, and he stays there as he draws his hips back to press against Izaya beneath him. Izaya flexes against the strain, his body tightening on involuntary force before Shizuo pushes, and Izaya groans and eases, and their bodies come together in a long stroke of slick-wet heat.

Shizuo makes a sound in the back of his throat, incoherency purring against the friction in the depths of his chest, and when his hand drops from his length it’s only to clutch at Izaya’s hip to steady the other against the bed as Shizuo rocks back to stroke forward and fill Izaya with the whole heat of him. Izaya gasps against the sheets, his voice muffled out-of-hearing, but the friction is audible in his throat, even without the grip of his body flexing tight around Shizuo’s cock in him. Shizuo spends his breath to a groan at Izaya’s neck, drags an inhale into his lungs, and lets his grip go to wrap his arm around Izaya’s waist instead to hold the other back against him.

“Izaya,” Shizuo groans, and “god” and that’s not meaning but his movement is speaking for him, his body flexing and easing into long, lingering thrusts to fill the give of Izaya’s body before him, to urge friction as deep into the other as Shizuo can sink himself. Izaya is shaking, his shoulders quivering against Shizuo’s chest and his breath rasping and his fingers curling against the sheets, but when his thighs flex it’s to arch up against the retreat of Shizuo’s hips, like he’s chasing down the heat of the other’s cock in him, and when Shizuo’s body rocks forward Izaya loses all the air in his lungs into an unrestrained groan of heat. Shizuo’s heart is pounding hard, beating out a rhythm that he’s following without thinking, and Izaya gives way beneath him as quickly as he asks for it, with only the involuntary tremors in his body to speak to his want for more. Shizuo lifts his head from Izaya’s shoulder, his gaze sliding up to seek out the desperate part of those lips and the hazy distraction in those eyes; but Izaya’s face is still turned down, braced close against the pillow beneath him in spite of the heat in the panting inhales he’s taking against the sheets. Shizuo can’t see anything of him but the flex of his shoulders and the night-dark fall of his hair, can’t hear anything of his voice but the whimper in his throat as he struggles for air against the resistance of the bed.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says again, with intention this time beyond simple appreciation of the other’s name. He lets his hold on Izaya’s waist go so he can brace himself at the bed and push up enough to free his other hand to touch against the other’s hair and stroke it back from the curve of his ear. “Turn your head.”

Izaya moves but it’s only to shake his head hard and to match the force of the motion with the clutch of his grip against the sheets under him. Shizuo frowns and reaches for another lock of Izaya’s hair to urge it back.

“Izaya,” he says again, with more force this time. “I want to see you.” He braces a hand at the back of Izaya’s head, urging the motion he’s asking for with the press of his fingers and holding Izaya’s hair out of the way at one at the same time. He can just see the strain at Izaya’s jaw, can see the flex of effort working in the other’s throat; when he ducks in closer he finds he can fit his lips to the flush on Izaya’s skin, can taste against the suggestion of sweat. Izaya whimpers something voiceless that Shizuo feels hum against the weight of his lips.

“Let me see you,” Shizuo murmurs against Izaya’s throat. “Izaya.” His fingers tighten, his hand flexes. “Turn your head.” Izaya’s shoulders tense, Izaya’s breathing strains; but then Shizuo’s hips come forward, Izaya’s thighs quiver, and he’s gasping an exhale and giving way at once to the urging of Shizuo’s hand against his hair. His head turns, his expression comes into view, and Shizuo lifts his head to look down and see him.

Izaya’s flushed red, with more than just the press of the blankets against his face or even the color of pleasure spreading over his expression; his cheeks are glowing with the scarlet of embarrassment, and his teeth are caught at his lower lip to match. But his lashes are heavy over his eyes, his gaze distracted even as he looks sideways at Shizuo watching him, and when Shizuo’s hips come forward he can watch the impact shudder over Izaya’s face, can see the heat of the act in the softening at the other’s mouth and the weight of his lashes canting down over his gaze. Shizuo’s breath catches, his eyes go wide, and when he moves again it’s with his full focus turned on the shudder in Izaya’s body and the color rising to burn against the other’s skin in answer to the friction of his movement.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, blurting the familiar syllables without any thought at all as his fingers tighten against Izaya’s hair to brace the other steady. “You’re _beautiful_.” Izaya flinches, his forehead creasing and his mouth shifting like he’s thinking of frowning, or of finding voice for a protest, but then Shizuo’s cock slides home again and the tension scatters to an open-mouthed gasp instead. Shizuo huffs a breath, something soft and wordless, and when he moves again it’s with a smile starting on his face without any conscious thought at all.

“You look amazing,” he says, with awe stark enough on his tongue to grant the words literal truth. His shoulders flex to curve him in over Izaya again, his fingers tighten against the sheets, and beneath him Izaya shudders through the whole of his body, like the tension he usually holds at the corners of his mouth and creased into his forehead is coming free for the urging of Shizuo’s movement. Shizuo remembers this from last time too, remembers watching Izaya’s usual mask crack and shatter to the thrust of his fingers, the force of his hand, the flex of his thighs, but it’s just as intoxicating now, it gives him that same sense of gazing at a stranger, of feeling something tight-knotted in his chest ease and unfold like a flower blossoming in answer to the glow of heat so clear on Izaya’s distracted face. Izaya’s lashes are heavy, his lips are parted, his breathing is rasping in his chest, and Shizuo keeps moving, his whole body falling into a rhythm so instinctive he doesn’t have to apply the least thought to keep stoking the ache in him, to keep knocking Izaya’s expression slack and open on heat. Izaya’s eyes are going darker with every thrust Shizuo takes, the crimson tint to them swallowed up by the dark of blown-wide pupils until Shizuo wonders if he’s seeing anything at all or if his vision has been entirely eclipsed by the heat suffusing his skin and flushing against his parted lips. Shizuo’s gaze lingers there, fixing itself to Izaya’s mouth as his hips rock forward to urge them closer together, to fit the strength of his body to the wanting heat of Izaya’s, and he can feel pressure tightening low in his body, straining up from his hips to ache deep-down in his belly with every forward stroke he takes.

“Izaya” and Shizuo’s voice is giving way, he can feel it, it’s melting past his lips on instinct more than thought. Izaya’s throat works, his fingers tighten, but when he tries to turn his head to look away Shizuo fixes his grip in place to brace him steady and Izaya submits with a groan. “You look so good, Izaya, let me watch you.”

“I can’t--” Izaya starts, dragging the words past his lips on some strain so intense it’s audible in the air, but Shizuo’s hips come forward to rock them both forward against Izaya’s bracing grip and the words die to a moan instead. “ _Shizuo_.”

“I like seeing you,” Shizuo tells him. “I like watching you. You always run away, I want to see you now.” His thumb eases on Izaya’s hair and strokes to urge the strands back from the curve of the other’s ear; Izaya’s throat strains on a soundless note. “I never see you look like this. Let me see your face, Izaya.”

Izaya’s forehead creases, straining on tension enough to overcome even the heat-glazed weight laid over the rest of his face. “I can’t,” he says again, straining over the words like he’s fighting uphill, before he shakes his head against the force of Shizuo’s hold. “I _can’t_.”

Shizuo frowns. “Why?” he asks. His hand slides down to curl at the back of Izaya’s neck, his fingers still steady enough to keep the other’s head tipped to the side. “What’s wrong?”  
“It’s not--” Izaya’s voice breaks, his mouth comes open; for a moment his whole expression is unravelled by the heat Shizuo is working into him. “I’m going…” His hand comes up from the sheets to clutch at Shizuo’s wrist instead, maybe to pull the other free, maybe just to brace himself. “I’m going to come.”

Shizuo can feel Izaya’s words resonate through the whole of his body in a long, helpless shudder of arousal. His hips buck forward, his cock jerks, and beneath him Izaya’s eyes shut and Izaya hisses over a gasp of pure strain. Shizuo can see it now, in the flush of Izaya’s mouth and the crease in his forehead; he can _feel_ it, tight in Izaya’s hold on his wrist and thrumming along the backs of the other’s thighs beneath him and quaking at the inside of his body, fluttering tight against Shizuo’s cock with every movement the other takes.

“Oh,” Shizuo says, breathing the epiphany of the word, and then he shifts his hand at the bed, and steadies himself, and reaches for his rhythm again. “Show me.”

Izaya’s exhale falls like a sob. “I can’t,” he gasps, but his gaze is going out-of-focus and he’s fighting with the weight of his mouth for every half-coherent word. “Shizu-chan, you.”

“I want to see,” Shizuo says again, just to underline the weight of his words if the steady pumping of his hips isn’t doing enough for him. “I want to see your face when you come, Izaya.” Izaya’s lashes are fluttering, his throat is working; his grip on Shizuo’s wrist is pure desperation, now, a drowning man clutching at an outstretched hand to keep his head above water. Shizuo’s heart is pounding, his body is moving faster, spurred on by some instinct as strong as his anger, stronger than his violence, something guided by the part of Izaya’s lips and the tension forming itself in every line of the other’s body.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, his voice tasting like a stranger’s on his tongue, like the heat that has always been at the core of him if he only knew how to claim it. “Show me.” His hips come forward, his cock drives deep into Izaya’s body; and Izaya’s eyes shut, Izaya’s lips part, and all the tension in his expression gives way for a moment of transcendent ease. Shizuo can feel the release of it as strain breaks to certainty, and then Izaya tenses, shuddering with the whole strength of his body against Shizuo’s hold on him as he comes against the soft of the sheets. His breathing crests and breaks, giving way to heat that turns his inhales to gasps and his exhales to moans, and it’s in watching the shimmer of incoherent pleasure flicker over Izaya’s features that Shizuo can feel his own building arousal crack into inevitability.

“Oh,” Shizuo groans. “Iza--” and his hips jolt forward on their own accord as the force of his orgasm rushes up and through him, rising from the base of his spine to surge out into the whole of his body in one long spasm of heat. He can hear himself gasping, can feel words or sound or raw heat vibrating in his throat as he comes, as his body tips him in and down over the tremor of Izaya still quaking through his own pleasure beneath him, but Shizuo can no more hear himself than he can loosen the tension of his grip against the sheets. All he has to hold to is the clarity of his gaze, his eyes still open and still fixed on Izaya, as if the weight of the other’s lashes over those scarlet-hazed eyes is dragging his own orgasm free of his body in lockstep with the shudder of Izaya’s own.

Shizuo finds his way back to himself slowly, in the space between heartbeats and the rasp of his breathing. His hands are still braced where they were, one against the sheets and the other steady at the back of Izaya’s head; Izaya’s fingers are still caught against his wrist, even, although the force of the other’s grip has faded along with the tension of his arousal and his touch is more forgotten contact than desperation, now. Izaya’s not trying to turn his head aside anymore; he’s gone heavy against the bed, the whole of his body sagging into the pliancy of satisfaction, and his gaze at the far side of the room is hazy with languid pleasure. He looks undone, his expression laid as bare by his release as his body was stripped of the disguise of clothes, and looking down at him Shizuo can feel his breathing catch, can feel his chest tighten on an ache more even than the heavy satisfaction suffusing the whole of his body. He looks down at Izaya for a moment, just staring as his fingers slide through the other’s hair with unthinking care; he’s still lost in the idle motion when Izaya takes a breath and stirs enough to cast his gaze back over his shoulder at Shizuo leaning over him.

“So,” Izaya manages, his tone aiming for some approximation of his usual flippancy and coming out husky on heat instead. He shifts his shoulder to arch his back into deliberate grace; his lips find the suggestion of a smirk to match the shadow clinging to his lashes. “Did you enjoy the view, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo snorts a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Very much.” He leans in to press close against the sweat-heat of Izaya’s back; Izaya arches up to meet him even before Shizuo presses his lips to kiss against the line of the other’s shoulder. Izaya hums in the back of his throat, sounding like nothing so much as a satisfied cat, and Shizuo smiles before he lifts his attention to the back of the other’s neck.

“What’s the verdict?” he asks as he turns his head to breathe in against the weight of Izaya’s hair falling against his neck. “Satisfied enough to let me stay the night?”

“Mm,” Izaya hums. “I don’t know.” He shifts his shoulders as if to resettle himself against the bed; Shizuo would find the gesture more convincingly casual if it didn’t happen to press Izaya perfectly flush against him. “I suppose I can give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thanks,” Shizuo growls. “Your generosity is inhuman.”

“It’s often been said,” Izaya says easily. It would be enough to tip Shizuo into a rage not a week ago; right now, with all the strain in his body spent to leave him languid with comfort, all it does is catch a startled laugh in the back of his throat. Izaya looks back at him, his eyes going wide with surprise as he does, and Shizuo lifts his head from the back of the other’s neck to flash a grin at him instead. Izaya’s mouth goes soft, startled into something very like surrender, and Shizuo can’t help but duck in to kiss him. He lingers there for a moment, his mouth pressed close against the corner of Izaya’s before he pulls back to hum amusement in the back of his throat.

“Thanks,” he says again, with more sincerity this time. “Izaya.” Izaya’s lashes dip, his shoulders tense, and this time when he takes a breath and turns aside Shizuo lets him duck down to hide his face at the sheets under them again.

He’s still getting used to the way sincerity looks on Izaya’s face himself.


	4. Blurred

Izaya can’t move when he wakes up.

It’s not that he’s injured. In actual fact he feels better than he has in weeks, likely due to his surrender to sleep at a time somewhat earlier than his habitual small hours of the morning. The only physical discomfort he’s feeling is a dull ache against the inside of his body, the protest of nerve endings that have received significantly more stimulation in the last twelve hours than he’s used to getting in a whole month, and that’s coupled with a deep, languid satisfaction that more than makes up for what pain might be associated with his most recent activities. Rising from a full night’s sleep ought to be a simple matter of pushing up from the familiar space of his bed, maybe stretching to work out the tensions of an awkward sleeping position, and getting to his feet to make for the shower and begin the usual routine of the day.

Except, of course, the fact that he is currently being pinned down to the bed by a hold as casual as it is absolutely and entirely unbreakable.

Izaya hadn’t considered this aspect when he gave Shizuo permission to stay the night. At the time he had made the offer his thoughts were occupied with the hours still remaining before sunset brought on the shadows of sleep, and the ways in which those same could be filled; and in full fairness, it had been some time before Shizuo’s stamina had failed enough to make sleep more appealing than sex, and at that point Izaya thinks he must have been near delirium with exhausted satisfaction. He doesn’t remember deciding to fall asleep; it was something that dragged him under as soon as he stopped fighting it, urging him down to sprawl atop the blankets as his eyelids weighted his vision to darkness. There had been warmth, after, amidst the haze of near-dreams Izaya drifted in, the movement of a blanket and some fragmented conversation too soft and short to hold any details in Izaya’s memory, and then the shadows of rest had swept in over him to pull him to true unconsciousness before he had really collected himself into an awareness of his situation.

He’s awake now, in any case. The bed is just as warm as when he fell asleep -- maybe more so than it was, if the suggestion of sweat against Izaya’s bare shoulders is any indication -- and the weight of exhaustion seems to be given physical form now that rest has eased some part of it from Izaya’s body. There’s an arm around him, forming that burden that is keeping him from rising as easily as he’s used to. It’s not particularly heavy; were it just an unresisting weight, Izaya is sure he could throw off Shizuo’s hold with hardly any effort at all. But muscles flex when Izaya shifts, Shizuo’s grip tightens to hold the other where he is when Izaya thinks of retreat, and Izaya knows too well how futile his efforts will fall matched against that unnatural strength that Shizuo carries with such casual grace. He lies still for long minutes, listening to the sound of Shizuo’s breathing still in the deep, slow rhythm of sleep and feeling the weight of that arm cast over him with such unthinking possessiveness, and finally he braces himself to twist into movement in the opposite direction, towards Shizuo behind him instead of away.

Shizuo is indeed asleep. Izaya had wondered if he weren’t being teased by no more than the illusion of unconsciousness from the man behind him while Shizuo clung to him like a favorite blanket, but the possibility evaporates from his mind as quickly as he turns his head to look at the other. Shizuo is lying still at the bed, his whole body slumped forward into the slack ease of unconsciousness, but more than anything it’s the relaxation on his face that convinces Izaya of the sincerity of the other’s rest. Shizuo’s expression is as relaxed as his body, from the uncreased smooth of his forehead and the weight of his lashes at his cheeks to the give of his mouth, where his lips are barely parted around the soft huff of his breathing coming as regular and even as a metronome. He’s the picture of calm, the image of peace, and Izaya can feel his own breathing catch and slide from his grip at this first proof he’s seen that Shizuo might be well-named after all.

It’s uncanny to see the ease in him. Izaya’s laid claim to dozens of pictures over the last years, many of them bought at the edge of immediate danger to himself; he’s always been willing to go to lengths to capture the curve of Shizuo’s smile, or the pensive crease at his forehead, any one of those expressions made precious exactly by how different they are from the seething fury that is all Izaya was ever privy to in his own existence. Izaya has made himself an addict of Shizuo’s smiles, has creased glimpsed facets of the other’s life into the shape of desperate desire in himself until anxious want is so closely aligned with pleasure that he can hardly tell the two apart. It feels strange, now, to have the one without the other; Izaya’s heart is beating faster in answer just to his expectation, as if he may need to bolt away from the present moment instead of being held to it by the urging of Shizuo’s unconscious desire. It’s more than Izaya can bear in comfort, more than he can fit around the pace of his breathing, until he can feel his shoulders tensing and his eyes prickling with the start of emotion demanding expression even when he sets his mouth to hold it back.

Maybe it’s the strain in him that stirs attention into Shizuo’s sleeping mind, in the end; maybe it’s the sound of Izaya’s breathing coming faster as he watches the pattern of dreams flicker across Shizuo’s face and the soft curve of his mouth that does it. Maybe it’s just the hour of the day, that Shizuo was already chasing Izaya to the finish line of consciousness even from within the deep weight of his dreams. It doesn’t make a difference, in any case: Izaya can see the shift spreading across Shizuo’s face, tightening at the corners of his eyes and pulling at his mouth as he stirs against the bed with more intentional motion than he has offered before. He turns his head half-down, ducking in to press against the pillows beneath him with a soft sound of waking in his throat; muscles flex in his bare shoulders as he works himself back into something like tension with a half-formed stretch where he lies. It’s part of that that tightens his grip on Izaya as his arm tenses with force enough to urge the other in flush against his chest, and Izaya submits to the pull for a lack of options enough to even consider them. He ends pinned close against Shizuo, their bodies aligned from hip to shoulder and his arm caught to angle uncomfortably between them. Shizuo’s hand shifts, his fingers sliding to wander against the curve of Izaya’s waist like he’s orienting himself against the structure of the other’s existence while his face is still turned down against the pillows, and for a brief, heartstopping moment Izaya wonders if Shizuo knows who he has in the curve of his arm, if that realization has yet to dawn as part of his process of waking. Izaya couldn’t pull away even if he could think to, not with Shizuo’s hold around him; all he can do is feel his throat close up on adrenaline, and his stomach drop with fear, and stare wide-eyed at the tangle sleep has made of Shizuo’s hair.

Shizuo groans against the pillow, a low sound of incoherent exhaustion, before he turns his head to look at Izaya next to him. Izaya’s heartbeat skids on panic, on the fear of seeing even a flicker of cold in the other’s gaze, but when Shizuo’s lashes dip they come up on warmth, and when his mouth tightens it’s to reach for the curve of a smile instead of even a momentary scowl.

“Morning,” he says. The rough weight of his voice is familiar but there’s none of the anger behind it to which Izaya has grown so accustomed; it’s just friction, now, dragging heavy enough for Izaya to feel the force of it purr all the way down the length of his spine. Shizuo turns his head into a better angle against the pillow as his smile widens into a grin. “This is a nice way to wake up.”

“Speak for yourself,” Izaya says. The bite of the words rises to his lips without effort, the instinct of self-defense acting for him to throw up even what fragile barrier words can give for the emotion he’s sure is painfully clear across his face. “I’m not generally in the habit of being held hostage in my bed.”

Shizuo snorts. “Don’t exaggerate,” he says, as if his casual hold around Izaya is somehow less certain than the weight of steel bands would be. “You can’t have been awake for that long.”

“Good thing too,” Izaya tells him. “Since you were determined to squeeze the life out of me before you woke up. Were you dreaming of tearing apart steel bars with your bare hands?”

Shizuo shakes his head against the pillow. His temper is slow even for whatever new peace he seems to have attained in the last few days, knocked out-of-focus by the effects of the sleep still clinging visibly to his lashes and lips. “No.”

“I suppose I have that to thank for my survival.” Izaya sighs and lets the tension in his shoulders go slack in a deliberate show of resignation to the force of Shizuo’s arm still around him. “What _were_ you dreaming about all night, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo frowns concentration and shakes his head. “Nothing, really.”

“Nothing?” Izaya repeats. “You’ve been passed out in my bed for almost nine hours, you can’t tell me you didn’t have a single dream.”

“I dreamt,” Shizuo protests. “I just don’t remember them.” He shrugs without loosening his hold on Izaya. “I forget them pretty quick, most mornings.”

“I should have expected as much,” Izaya sighs. “It’s not as if you would bother to make a habit of paying attention. It’s too far beneath your interests, is that it?”

Shizuo frowns at him with the very start of the frustration Izaya has been seeking out in his eyes. “No,” he says. “I just don’t remember. Do _you_?”

Izaya closes his mouth immediately. The conclusion is an obvious one to come to; he can feel his cheeks coloring with embarrassment as much for his distraction in leading to such an incriminating point as for the details of the streets he dreams of, the growl of a familiar shout and the press of hands reaching to close around him like the vise he always wakes up craving. He drops his gaze to Shizuo’s shoulder and shakes his head. “With the way you were manhandling me when I woke up I don’t think I can be expected to remember much of anything, Shizu-chan.”

“Uh huh,” Shizuo says, in a tone that says he buys Izaya’s story approximately as much as Izaya himself does, but he doesn’t push the point. He shifts his grip instead, sliding his arm down to lie low across the line of Izaya’s hips as he rocks back so he can free his arm from where it’s folded under his head to help support the weight of it. “I can remember parts of mine, if I try.” Izaya lifts his head as Shizuo stretches his arm out under him, giving way to the aim of the other’s motion without resistance; when he lowers himself again it’s to pillow his head on Shizuo’s arm before looking up through his lashes at the other. Shizuo is watching him still, his gaze fixed full on Izaya’s face without any of the sleepy haze that was there before for all that his eyes are still soft. It’s hard to meet his gaze when he’s looking like that -- it makes Izaya feel like a fake, like Shizuo will blink and Izaya’s disguise will give way all at once to reveal him for who he really is -- but there’s no choice at all to look away, so Izaya sets his jaw and goes on staring to meet Shizuo’s attention.

“They were nice dreams,” Shizuo says, drawling over the words with the same comfort that has Izaya pinned so entirely to the bed under the other’s arm. Shizuo lifts his other hand to touch against Izaya’s hair and tug idly against the strands. “Kind of warm and comfortable. It’s probably why I slept so long.”

“You’d rather be asleep than spending time with me?” Izaya offers the words with an edge on them, as if the cut of a knife has ever really been enough to scatter Shizuo’s attention from him. “I’m flattered.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I was going anywhere.”

“Or letting me go anywhere either,” Izaya reminds him. “Whatever you were dreaming about had you holding me prisoner in my own bed.”

Shizuo snorts a laugh. His arm slides down against Izaya’s shoulders to urge the other in closer against him; when he ducks in his mouth skims against Izaya’s forehead, just over the fall of his hair. “Doesn’t it make more sense the other way around?”

Izaya can feel the shift of Shizuo’s lips moving over the words, like they’re forming the shape of the syllables in against his skin. It’s hard to pay attention to even the show of irritation he’s putting on when his lashes are weighted as heavy over his eyes as they are. “What are you talking about?”

“I was holding you when I fell asleep,” Shizuo says. Izaya can remember that, vaguely; he was too close to sleep himself to really notice, but the reminder of Shizuo’s words grants shape to the recollection of pressure pulling against him, of some radiant heat settling in against his shoulders and catching over the restless motion of his legs to weight them to stillness. It’s a sign of how thoroughly Shizuo’s hold drew him into sleep, Izaya thinks, that he lost the details so entirely until recalled. “If I had good dreams it makes more sense for them to be caused by you than the other way around, doesn’t it?”

Izaya can feel his cheeks darken, as if the wave of a sunburn is cresting under his skin to lay itself to a dull ache against the line of his cheekbones. He ducks his head in and away from Shizuo’s mouth against his forehead as much to hide his face in the shadow of his hair as to shove against the other’s shoulder with the weight of his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” Shizuo says. Izaya can hear the smile on his voice. “I can’t believe _this_ is what embarrasses you.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” Izaya tells Shizuo’s chest without lifting his head to see the soft of the expression Shizuo is turning on him. He can feel his skin prickling with the force of it just the same anyway. “I’m just tired after you woke me up so early.”

“You were awake before I was.”

“I couldn’t turn over,” Izaya tells him. “You clinging to me when I tried to move is what woke me up in the first place.”

“Do you even know how to tell the truth anymore?”

“I am telling the truth,” Izaya says, and turns his hand to push with deliberate weakness against the span of Shizuo’s chest. “If you’d just get off me maybe I could catch up on my beauty rest.”

“Your beauty rest?” Shizuo repeats. His fingers drag through Izaya’s hair with slow consideration. “You don’t need it.”

Izaya bites his lip and pushes against Shizuo’s chest again. “Shut up,” he says, with only a little bit of a quaver on his voice. “I have expectations to live up to, now. My boyfriend’s going to dump me if I let myself go. Are you trying to sabotage my relationship, now, Shizu-chan? This is the worst kind of jealousy, really.”

Shizuo heaves a sigh and lets his hold on Izaya go so abruptly that Izaya’s heart drops. He grabs at Shizuo’s shoulder, deception abandoned in favor of keeping Shizuo here, where he is, even knowing he’s incapable of stopping the inevitable collapse of this reality too impossible for existence, but Shizuo doesn’t even seem to notice Izaya’s hold as he tips back across the span of the bed. Izaya lifts his head, all thought of hiding his face similarly thrown over in the first panic of impending loss, and Shizuo’s hands come up to catch at either side of his face and brace him to absolute stillness. Izaya stares up at Shizuo, still caught in the wide-eyed horror of anticipated loss, and Shizuo gazes back at him, his eyes dark and his mouth set on something unfamiliar enough to make Izaya’s fingers shudder with desire for a camera.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. He’s speaking more loudly, without the slurring softness of the tones they have been laying against the morning quiet of the room. His voice would be enough to carry down the length of a downtown alley, Izaya thinks; it’s enough to freeze Izaya in place just as he is, with his hand still curled to useless desperation against the back of Shizuo’s neck and his throat flexing tight on the tears he can feel burning behind his eyes.

“I’m not going to dump you.” Shizuo’s mouth twists on the words, as if he’s struggling to get them past his lips. He frowns and shakes his head to steady himself. “I’ve spent almost a decade of my life chasing you. What makes you think I’m going to stop now?”

“Because you know,” Izaya says; not because he wants to offer sincerity, not because he intends to volunteer the tension straining in his chest, but because Shizuo’s hands at his face demand it just by their contact, because he’s learning honesty under the force of Shizuo’s attention until it spills from him with no more pressure than the weight of the other’s stare and the diamond-hard focus of his attention. Izaya presses his lips together to swallow as his forehead creases with the effort of holding his voice to steadiness. “You know how I feel about you. How I’ve _always_ felt about you. There’s no mystery anymore.”

Shizuo snorts. “You think I want _mystery_?” He urges his hands back farther into Izaya’s hair, until he’s cupping the weight of the other’s head between his palms rather than framing his face. “Your stupid games were what drove me crazy all these years. All I’ve ever been trying to do is understand you in the first place.” He looks at Izaya for another moment, his attention flickering across the other’s face like he’s reading a novel from the details of Izaya’s expression, and then he heaves a sigh and ducks in at once. Izaya shuts his eyes, giving in to the contact even before Shizuo’s lips have found their way to press a kiss against his forehead with as much unswerving force as a blow. The weight lingers, the warmth spilling out until Izaya feels himself glowing with the heat of the contact before Shizuo draws back to huff a sigh hard enough to ruffle his hair.

“I’m not going to leave,” Shizuo says, softly enough that the words almost pass for a whisper. “I finally have the chance to get my hands on you and you think I’m going to give that up?”

Izaya manages to force a laugh past the tension in his throat. “That’s more than a little foreboding, Shizu-chan.”

“Yeah.” Shizuo kisses his forehead again, just alongside the weight of the first contact. “You like danger, right? Can’t have you getting bored of me that fast.” Izaya coughs a startled sound in the back of his throat at the pure shock of this idea; he can feel the way Shizuo grins against him before the hands at his head dip him in and down so Shizuo can drop a kiss at the top of his head, against the fall of his hair. He lingers there for a moment, like he’s savouring the connection, before he draws back and lets his hold on Izaya go. He sits up as quickly, pushing himself to upright from under the sheets as fast as Izaya opens his eyes to look up.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Shizuo declares as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed in expectation of standing. When he twists to look back over his shoulder it’s to look straight into Izaya’s wide eyes fixed on him; his mouth catches to tension at the corner, the beginnings of a smile at his lips as he considers the other. “Think you’ll still be around by the time I get done?”

Izaya huffs a breath and turns to curl face-down against the blankets beneath him. “This is my _home_ , Shizu-chan, you’re not going to chase me out.” He reaches out to grab at the edge of the blanket and drag it up around his waist to at least cover his legs from the minimal cool of the air in the bedroom. “Take your time, maybe I can catch up on some of my sleep by the time you’re back.”

Shizuo smiles. “Okay,” he says, and gets to his feet to leave the bed to Izaya. He’s only wearing the same boxer shorts he had on yesterday as a minimal concession to decency; when he lifts his arms over his head to stretch luxuriously Izaya watches the flex of muscle in his back and along the line of his thighs and decides that decency might be overrated. He’s still staring when Shizuo looks back at him; Shizuo’s mouth turns up at the corner to match the tilt of his head as he considers Izaya curled into the nest of the blankets. “Sure you don’t want to join me?”

Izaya shakes his head. “I’m staying right here,” he says; and then, in the most offhand tone he can muster: “There’s no point in getting clean when I’ll just be sticky again as soon as you’re back for me.” Shizuo’s eyebrows jump up, a giveaway for his surprise, but he snorts a laugh in the back of his throat all the same and Izaya has to bite his lip again to keep from smiling.

“Fair enough,” Shizuo says. “I’ll be right back.” And he turns to make his way to the bathroom with easy self-confidence in every step he takes. Izaya watches him go, feeling his shoulders tense with adrenaline he can’t shake in spite of himself even when he’s seen Shizuo disappear into the bathroom. It’s only after he’s heard the sound of the water coming on that he finally lets his head fall and turns over against the bed to press his face against the pillow Shizuo used the night before like he might be able to find some proof of the other’s presence against the soft of it.

Izaya can’t tell if it’s the pillow or the echo of Shizuo’s words that provides more comfort, but by the time the water shuts off he’s smiling against the shadows of the sheets beneath him, and what pressure there is in his chest is from anticipation more than anxiety.


	5. Chromatic

Izaya arrives at the festival before Shizuo does.

This isn’t an accident. Shizuo has yet to be late to any of their scheduled meetings -- in actual fact he has a demonstrated tendency to arrive early by a handful of minutes -- but Izaya wants the time to settle himself, to become comfortable within the shape of his surroundings before he has to navigate the increasingly distracting details of interacting with Heiwajima Shizuo. There was a time when he could have handled a conversation with poise and grace while maintaining his awareness of his surroundings, when keeping his guard up against an incoming vending machine or the low rumble of a warning growl was second nature to him; violence is easy to watch against, and Izaya has years of experience with which to polish his reactions to the same. But over the last few days all the structure that Izaya thought would never change has fallen to pieces around his feet as aggression reformed into passion and assumed hate has been recast into frustrated desire, and he still can’t get his bearings on any of the offhand details that come along with that. Unexpected phone calls, the warmth of a smile, the weight of Shizuo next to him as he sleeps: Izaya feels like what he always took for gravity has evaporated to leave him constantly adrift in the thrilling, terrifying uncertainty of freefall.

So he arrives early. They’re meeting some ways outside of Shinjuku or Ikebukuro; however blasé Shizuo may be about their newfound romance, Izaya feel the gazes of strangers on them like a weight, and he has more than enough to occupy himself with Shizuo’s attention alone. With full hours of casual interaction stretching before him with the same alarming possibilities of a blank canvas, Izaya doesn’t want any concerns of disguise or subterfuge to keep his focus on anything but Shizuo next to him. So they’re outside the main city, meeting at the boundary of one of the small festivals that seem to spring up like flowers at this time of year, and when Izaya settles himself at the fringe of the crowd and turns his attention to the incoming visitors it’s without any need to concern himself over the possibility of being recognized.

He thinks it would be hard for any of his usual acquaintances to place him anyway. He can still recall the flicker of Shizuo’s lashes from across the distance of the table at Russia Sushi, the way his mouth went soft and unthinking just for the addition of a little color to Izaya’s usual clothing, and if Izaya’s hardly going to overhaul his entire wardrobe because of a single startled blink he’s remembered it every time he opens his closet to consider the array of monochrome black within. The red hoodie he wore that first night out remains in the back of a drawer, where Izaya had to put it just to keep his focus somewhere akin to where it should be instead of wandering through recollection, but he spent a little longer browsing shopping website than was reasonable after returning late that night. He’s glad that Shizuo wasn’t over when the packages arrived -- Izaya might be increasingly aware of his own helpless infatuation, but he’s not ready to telegraph that overtly to Shizuo -- but he still set aside the lead he had been working on in exchange for trying on everything at once. Some of it he put back into storage -- change or no, there’s something fundamentally unsettling about the way even a saturated blue looks against his skin and the dark of his hair -- but there were a few pieces he kept on for almost an hour, considering the way they fit and possible chances to wear them, and a festival seems the perfect place to try out the effect of his toyed-with change. His jacket is pale, this time, a white as vivid as one of Shizuo’s bartender shirts that seems to all but glow in the shadows of the falling night, and Izaya thinks the petal-pink shirt might be the prettiest thing he’s ever worn outside of his occasional forays into crossdressing. He feels strange in both of them, as if the colors themselves bear a different weight than the usual dark he wraps himself in, or as if he’s asking for eyes to seek him out of the shadows where he’s waiting, but no one looks at him with anything more than a moment of appreciative consideration, and that’s closely enough aligned with Izaya’s goals that he doesn’t begrudge them their stares.

The minutes pass slow. The festival is gaining in presence the longer Izaya waits, as the individuals and couples that move past him dissolve themselves into the swelling volume of the crowd itself. The initial calls of the vendors lining the street have given way to a chatter of voices, conversations and bargaining and laughter alike merging into a single rising note; it would be an irresistible temptation, Izaya thinks, if he were waiting for anyone else. An agreement with Shinra would have long since been thrown over in favor of wandering through the ebb and flow of the crowd; even a business deal would be awaiting a text while Izaya amuses himself in tracking the patterns of joy and disappointment that are flickering like electricity through the conversations surging up as if from the festival itself. But he came here with the expectation of meeting someone, and all his interest in the present moment is insufficient to override his hopes for the future, the possibility of blending himself into just another couple in the mass of humanity rather than floating across the top as the outside observer he usually is.

A high school boy walks past, still wearing the giveaway of his uniform. Izaya wonders if he’s oblivious to how much he stands out or if he was just in too much of a hurry to meet the girl walking close against his side to bother with changing. She’s dressed in a summer yukata, the fabric printed over with designs of flowers so she looks like she’s standing under a cherry tree in full bloom; as Izaya watches them go past he sees the boy reach to touch at the fall of the fabric, skimming his fingers against the weight as if he’s appreciating the texture of it, or maybe just marveling over the detail of the design. The girl ducks her head without pausing in the flow of the rambling conversation she’s offering; Izaya can see the shift of her sleeve move as she lifts her own hand to brush as if by accident against the boy’s next to her. For a moment their fingers interlink, curling around each other for the briefest moment of pressure; then the girl lifts her hand to brush her hair back, and the boy pushes his hands into his pockets, and they continue on into the festival, absent that point of contact but still standing close enough for their sleeves to touch. Izaya watches them go, his chest aching as if it’s under some intense pressure, and then:

“Izaya?” and he’s turning at once, startled into action by the sound of his name in that familiar voice. His gaze slides over the crowd, looking for the familiar black-and-white uniform that has formed a warning and a lure at once to him for the span of the last years, but when his focus finds bleached-blond hair and the set of a jaw too familiar to be mistaken it’s not accompanied by the bartender clothes that he was expecting. It’s certainly Shizuo before him, standing with his forehead creased and his attention flickering over Izaya with satisfying attention to the other’s clothes; Izaya would feel deeply victorious in that success if he weren’t too busy staring at Shizuo in turn.

The other’s uniform is entirely absent. The crisp slacks, the open cuffs, the clipped-on tie: Shizuo’s abandoned all of those. He’s wearing a yukata instead, the weight of it spanning the breadth of his shoulders and cinched in carefully at his waist with as much attention as that carried by the high school girl Izaya just watched disappear into the crowd. Shizuo’s favored darker colors than the girl -- the fabric of his yukata is blue, overlaid with a winding pattern of white rising up from the edges that brings to mind the foam of waves cresting from the sea -- but he still looks elegant and formal in a way Izaya has never seen him before in any of the uniforms he’s had cause to wear. Izaya had chosen his clothes with an intent to gaining the upper hand in this outing, to drawing Shizuo’s attention away from the festival and onto him, but he’s forgotten entirely about the deliberately casual appearance he manufactured for himself in the first shock of seeing Shizuo dressed in the most traditional formality Izaya’s ever seen him in.

Shizuo clears his throat and Izaya’s attention finally comes back up to the other’s face. Shizuo is frowning at him, although his eyes are still soft enough to suggest that his expression is more one of concentration than of true anger. He ducks his chin towards Izaya’s shirt and open jacket. “You’re not wearing a yukata.”

Izaya presses his lips together to swallow some amount of speech back over his tongue. “I thought I’d be a little more casual for the evening,” he says. It had seemed like a good excuse when he manufactured it in the space of his bedroom; now it just trembles itself into uncertainty on his tongue. He lifts his hands to catch at the edge of his shirt and draw it out as if to make an offering of the fabric. “What, don’t you like pink on me?”

Shizuo’s gaze drops to follow the motion of Izaya’s hands before sliding up with as much intent as if his gaze is carrying the weight of his touch behind it. Izaya’s skin prickles with pleasant self-consciousness as he watches Shizuo’s forehead ease out of its crease, watches the shift of the other’s lips part and give in surrender to whatever thoughts are murmuring behind his eyes. Shizuo stares at Izaya for a long moment, visibly lingering over the shape of the other’s clothes and tracking the lay of the seams against his neck and wrists before he turns his head away and clears his throat with deliberate intention as his cheeks darken to color of their own.

“No,” Shizuo says. “You look great.”

Izaya bites his lip to keep from grinning. “Thank you,” he says instead, and lifts his head to toss his hair back from his face. He doesn’t mean for his gaze to catch and linger against the collar of Shizuo’s yukata; it’s an involuntary reaction, as much a reflex as anything else that pins his attention to the V framing the indentation just between the other’s collarbones. He gazes for a moment, his focus tangled in place in spite of his best efforts, before he manages to duck his head and pull himself back into something like self-control. “You don’t look half bad yourself, Shizu-chan.”

“Kasuka said you have to wear a yukata to a festival.” Shizuo comes in closer to stand just in front of Izaya. “I had him help me pick it out.”

Izaya raises an eyebrow while keeping his head ducked forward to hide his expression in the fall of his hair. “Count on your model brother to have an eye for fashion,” he says. He lifts his fingers to brush over the white line formed by the inside layer beneath the saturated blue where the edge of the yukata runs diagonally over Shizuo’s chest. “That hardly seems fair. I’ll need to hire myself a consultant to dress me just to keep up.”

“You’re fine like this,” Shizuo says. His hands are apparently as uncontrollable as Izaya’s own; there’s a moment of contact at Izaya’s waist as the other’s fingers drag against fabric for a heartbeat before dropping back to his sides. Izaya can hear the soft sound of Shizuo working over a swallow. “It’s nice.”

Izaya looks up through his lashes. Shizuo’s watching the weight of his hand against Izaya’s hip, where the contact is ghosting with just enough force to rustle the burden of the other’s clothes against his skin. His gaze is dark, his attention lingering like he can’t think to pull it up and away; the soft at his mouth makes him look distracted, like he’s struggling to find coherency for himself. Izaya catches his lip in his teeth and grins unseen for a moment before he clears his throat with deliberate force.

“Well,” he says, dropping into the most flippant tone he can find as Shizuo blinks to look back up at him. “If you’re that enraptured by just casual clothes I really _will_ have to wear a yukata next time.” He takes a half-step back, tipping away as if to retreat as he trails his touch down Shizuo’s yukata and lets his smile flicker into flirtation at his lips. “Only think of what I could get up to with the great Heiwajima Shizuo wrapped around my finger.”

“I’d rather not,” Shizuo growls, obtaining the sketch of a frown at his lips for the span of a few heartbeats before it collapses into a laugh instead. “You don’t need clothes for that.”

“Oh I know,” Izaya says, and pivots on his heel to turn away towards the festival. “Taking them off seems to work well enough so far, anyway.”

Shizuo groans. “ _Izaya_ ” but his protest comes out tinged with a little bit of a laugh, and Izaya doesn’t have to turn to track the footsteps following at speed in his wake. “You can’t _say_ that.”

“Why not?” Izaya asks, glancing back as he gestures expansively at the stalls lining the street and the crowd still several feet in front of them. “No one’s paying attention.”

“Because,” Shizuo says, and reaches out to catch at Izaya’s hand hanging slack at his side. His fingers curl into a hold at Izaya’s wrist, painless and utterly secure at once, and Izaya doesn’t try to drag his hand free, even when Shizuo steps in to cast his shadow over Izaya before him. This close Izaya has to tilt his head up to hold the dark of the other’s gaze; it’s dizzying to have Shizuo near enough to claim his advantage of height. “It means I have to do this.” And Shizuo’s ducking in over him, tipping in towards Izaya’s mouth at the same time his hand comes up to touch against the other’s shoulder. Izaya doesn’t have the opportunity to make a conscious decision about his reaction; it happens immediately, instinctively, his chin lifting and his lashes dipping and his mouth parting in expectation of the contact to come. Izaya’s free hand comes up to touch against Shizuo’s waist, bracing himself steady with a point of contact to match the weight resting just against the collar of his jacket along his shirt, and their mouths press together for a moment, the curve of one fitting to the other with a grace that seems to grow easier with every repetition, until Izaya hardly has to think to tip his head into surrender to Shizuo’s mouth. They stay there for a moment, Shizuo’s mouth glowing warmth against Izaya’s lips; and then Shizuo draws back, and Izaya works through the complex process of opening his eyes and bringing his gaze back into focus.

“We’re in public,” Izaya says without letting his touch at Shizuo’s waist go. “You can’t just kiss me, Shizu-chan.”

“I can,” Shizuo says, his voice low as if he’s whispering a secret for Izaya’s lips to catch and hold to safety. “Pretty sure I just did.”

“Someone will see.”

Shizuo shrugs. “Who cares?” he drawls. His fingers tighten against Izaya’s wrist as he ducks down, angling to press his mouth close to Izaya’s ear this time rather than the give of his lips. When he speaks Izaya can hear the rumble of amusement on the words. “No one’s paying attention anyway.”

Izaya can’t help but smile at that, however fast he ducks his head to hide the warmth of his expression. Shizuo gusts an exhale that takes the shape of a laugh against Izaya’s hair before he straightens to stand upright again and lets his hand fall from Izaya’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he says, and steps away from Izaya’s touch to come around the other instead and move towards the festival itself. He tugs to urge Izaya into motion behind him; Izaya lets himself be pulled into a turn to make the lead of Shizuo’s hold on him obviously necessary before he moves forward. “I want a crêpe before the fireworks start.”

Izaya sighs dramatically. “Sugar,” he intones. “What are you, an elementary school student?”

Shizuo looks back over his shoulder to frown at him. “It’s a _festival_ ,” he says. “You have to have sweets or it wouldn’t feel right. Haven’t you ever even had a candy apple?”

“I’ve tried all kinds of things,” Izaya informs him. “I don’t care for sweets.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t,” he sighs. “I guess you won’t let me buy a taiyaki for my boyfriend then, huh?”

Izaya can feel his face heat in spite of his best efforts to control his reaction, and the edge of the grin Shizuo is turning back on him isn’t helping. He drags his mouth into a frown and ducks his head forward, taking a pair of quick steps to catch up to Shizuo as he pulls to urge his hand free. “Of course not,” he says, biting the words off as he makes some show of shaking out the friction clinging heat under his skin. “We’re not in high school, Shizu-chan, you don’t have to act like you’re out on your first date.”

“I know,” Shizuo says with unassailable calm. Izaya reflects that he may have given away more of the upper hand than he realized in letting Shizuo attain such complete contentment in his life; it’s more telling, he thinks, that he can’t quite find it in him to consider it a loss. “I just want to enjoy the festival with you.”

Izaya heaves a sigh as dramatic as he can make it and hopes with what he knows to be futility that his blush will go unnoticed. “No sweets for me,” he declares, letting the rejection linger in the air for a moment before he tips his head and makes a show of noticing one of the stands a little farther along the street. “I’ll take yakitori instead.”

Shizuo snorts. “Thanks for the concession.”

“You’re welcome,” Izaya says, with significantly more sincerity in his tone than Shizuo offered. He eases his pace to fall into step with Shizuo’s longer but more leisurely strides alongside him; when his elbow bumps against Shizuo’s he turns his head to look out at the lights strung between the food stalls instead of meeting the gaze the other turns on him. “There’s an unlocked stairwell down at the end of this street, we should be able to get onto the rooftop without any trouble.”

“What?” That’s confusion, now, probably linked to a frown at Shizuo’s lips, but Izaya doesn’t glance to see the expression on the other’s face. “I thought you wanted to see the festival.”

“I do,” Izaya says. “It’s for the view, later.” He turns his head at last to cast his gaze up through his lashes at Shizuo. “It’s not a proper festival without fireworks, right?”

Shizuo’s lashes flutter over understanding as his frown gives way to parted lips and an exhale of dawning comprehension. Izaya wants to duck away and hide his face again; it’s only force of will that lets him go on holding Shizuo’s gaze as the other’s lips press together and curve up towards the beginning of a smile. Shizuo goes on looking at Izaya for a moment, just watching the other’s face with complete focus before he finally tips his head to look back out at the festival around them.

“Well then,” he says. “Let’s get some yakitori.” He turns in towards one of the vendors, moving quickly enough that his shoulder bumps to press close against Izaya’s. “We don’t want to miss the fireworks.”

Izaya would guess it’ll be more than an hour before the sun has sunk enough to darken the sky to an appropriate canvas for the show in question; right now the horizon is still colored to orange and red from the sunset spilling flames out across the sky. But he lets Shizuo urge him into motion all the same as they turn out of the main street to move towards one of the hopeful vendors.

Shizuo does buy yakitori, enough for the both of them, and a crêpe, later, when his hands are free to manage it and Izaya is free to turn up his nose at the offer of the dessert. It’s not until they’re hidden in the shadows of the rooftop that he lets Shizuo feed him a bite, and if he still doesn’t find it particularly to his liking, catching a smear of cream at his lip gets him the press of Shizuo’s mouth against his until the sound of the first firework exploding distracts them from each other, at least long enough to watch the bursts of color sparkling across the sky overhead as they illuminate Izaya’s white jacket to technicolor.

Izaya doesn’t know if it’s strawberries or Shizuo that tastes so sweet on his tongue, but he finds himself smiling into the flickering glow of the fireworks just the same.


	6. Perspective

It’s not until they’re standing outside the door of the apartment that the nerves hit for Shizuo.

Izaya’s been the tense one. From the start he’s been tight-wound with strain, leery about being seen in public and hesitant over initiation of any kind of physical contact, and he looks at Shizuo like the other’s gone crazy every time Shizuo reaches for his hand, or touches his shoulder, or leans in to press their mouths together. Shizuo is fairly sure it’s only Izaya’s constant belief that this is all some elaborate plot to manipulate him into some nefarious end, and his ultimate resignation to that, that kept him from protesting this particular idea more strongly. But it was Shizuo’s idea in the first place, a necessity he feels vaguely is due to two of his closest friends and, so far as he knows, Izaya’s _only_ friend, and he’s been thinking of it with no more than a sense of duty for the last day and a half. It’s only now, with his hand raised to actually knock against the door to Celty and Shinra’s apartment, that he can feel self-consciousness set in against the line of his shoulders and at his hand clasped in Izaya’s to stall him short of knocking.

It takes Izaya a moment to notice. He’s had his head down since they left his apartment this morning -- Shizuo is increasingly spending every night he can spare at the other’s home, and thus far Izaya hasn’t breathed so much as a sigh of judgment about this -- and his grip on Shizuo’s hand is so tight Shizuo wonders if he hasn’t shut his eyes to block out his awareness of the task they’re undertaking. But silence does what all Shizuo’s attempts at conversation could not, apparently, and pulls Izaya’s attention up after a long span of seconds to frown at Shizuo’s raised fist stalled out an inch above the surface of the door.

“Are you planning to stand there all day?” Izaya asks. “Here I was thinking you actually wanted to _talk_ to your friends. If I had known you were prone to hovering outside their front door like a stalker I wouldn’t have been nearly so stressed.”

Shizuo tips his head to glare down at Izaya next to him. “Shut up,” he says. “Shinra’s your friend too, isn’t he?”

Izaya shrugs. “If _friend_ involves glaring at his door and expecting it to open for me, I’m afraid I can’t lay claim to that particular title.”

Shizuo scowls. “I’m collecting my thoughts.”

“Can’t think well on your feet?” Izaya says, and turns away from Shizuo’s frown. “Well, they say practice makes perfect” and he slides his hand from Shizuo’s hold with such speed that Shizuo doesn’t even realize Izaya is loosening his grip before his fingers are closing on empty air. Shizuo looks up to track the motion of Izaya’s gesture but it’s too late to try to catch him back; by the time he sees what the other’s goal is Izaya is pressing hard against the doorbell to hum the sound of the buzzer inside the apartment.

“Better think fast, Shizu-chan,” he says as he lets his arm fall to his side and moves to push his hands into his pockets rather than reaching out to reclaim the grip he had on Shizuo’s answering hold. “The interrogation starts soon.”

“Stop talking like that,” Shizuo growls in an undertone. “It’s not as if we’re up for judgment.” Izaya’s eyebrows raise in a clear gesture of skepticism, although he doesn’t bother putting words to it any more than he turns to meet Shizuo’s gaze. Shizuo frowns at the other’s profile, feeling more adrift than he expected to with the absence of Izaya’s hand in his, but he’s only just taking a breath to go on speaking when the door comes open and his attention is jerked around along with a burst of adrenaline that would seem to grant Izaya’s claim at least a suggestion of accuracy, however Shizuo may want to deny it.

It’s Shinra on the other side of the door: a small relief, at least. Shizuo would like to at least make it past the entryway before they have this conversation, and he’s not sure he could persuade Celty he was in his right mind without a full explanation just to tell why he’s standing semi-calmly next to Orihara Izaya. Shinra just looks up at them without so much as a flicker in the smile he gives first to Shizuo and then to Izaya, not looking surprised in the least to see two sworn enemies in such close proximity.

“Shizuo-kun!” he chirps with his usual unflagging cheer on his tone. “What a pleasant surprise to have you here. And with Izaya-kun too!” He turns to beam at Izaya. “Did you come here with a job?”

“Not exactly,” Shizuo says. He _is_ glad it’s Shinra and not Celty -- this would be almost impossible with the silent shock of Celty’s nonexistent gaze on him -- but now that it’s come to the moment he finds his words are entirely absent, until it’s difficult even to formulate an answer to the simplicity of Shinra’s question. His fingers flex on the space left by Izaya’s retreat; he feels the lack of the other’s touch like an ache enough to draw a frown over his lips before he huffs and lifts his hand to shove roughly up through the weight of his hair over his collar. “Can we come in?”

“Of course.” Shinra steps to the side of the doorway, still holding the door open, and Shizuo follows Izaya’s lead in stepping over the threshold. Izaya steps out of his shoes with such grace it’s hard to see how he managed to keep them on over the length of the walk here; Shizuo has to struggle with his a moment longer, frowning at the resulting delay that leaves Izaya to step forward into the space of the apartment without him.

“Afternoon, courier,” Izaya says as he rounds the corner. When Shizuo lifts his head to look he can see Izaya raising a hand in a wave as his mouth pulls onto that usual flickering smirk that doesn’t make it over the full distance to his eyes. “Imagine running into you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Shinra asks Shizuo as he lets the door fall shut again, and Shizuo looks back to the other. “We weren’t expecting to see either you or Izaya-kun.” Shinra laughs as if he’s made some brilliant joke. “And certainly not together! Did you two kiss and make up?”

Normally this would be enough to put Shinra in some danger from the flare of Shizuo’s temper, however short-lived it might be. As things are now -- in the new normal, Shizuo supposes it must be -- it just hunches his shoulders up around his ears with uncomfortable self-consciousness. Shinra looks back up from the door and Shizuo looks away immediately, not trusting himself to face the shine off those glasses when he’s confronted with Shinra’s clinical attention.

“Uh,” he says, with such complete incoherence he thinks it must carry as much meaning as words. “Actually.”

“I’m not sure.” Izaya’s reply to some silent inquiry of Celty’s is piercing, whether from tone or volume Shizuo doesn’t know which. Maybe he’s just looking for something else to pay attention to other than the burden of Shinra’s focused attention on him. Maybe it’s just that it’s Izaya, that Shizuo responds to the sound of the other’s voice as if the answering is hardwired into his very bones. He’s looking up in any case, his head swinging around to track the source of the words and to look right into Izaya’s cast-back attention. “Shizu-chan, what was your plan for the big reveal?”

Shizuo growls. “I told you to stop talking about it like that.” He steps forward away from his shoes at the entryway to cross the distance between himself and Izaya without sparing so much as a thought for Shinra still watching at the door. “It’s not like it’s some dramatic secret or anything.”

“Oh good,” Izaya says. “No need for equivocation then.” He turns back to Celty, around the corner and out of Shizuo’s view. “Shizu-chan and I are sleeping together.”

Shizuo makes a strangled noise as he bolts forward to grab at Izaya’s arm, but he’s at too much of a distance to so much as interrupt the other’s words. All he succeeds at doing is knocking Izaya off-balance and into a stumbling fall he’s only saved from by Shizuo’s hold and in drawing a lopsided grin onto the other’s face as he looks up through his lashes at Shizuo.

“Ow,” he says, putting more force onto the word than it needs. “There’s no need to act like that, Shizu-chan. I thought it was no big deal?”

“It’s not,” Shizuo snaps. “That doesn’t mean you should just blurt it like some obvious fact.” He glares at Izaya for a moment, although this expression has exactly as much effect as his temper ever seems to on the other’s sharp-edged cheer, before he braces himself to turn and look for Celty’s reaction.

She’s taking it better than he expected, which is to say she’s still on her feet and hasn’t dropped into the outright collapse to the floor that the news could reasonably merit. She has her phone in her hand and her fingers over the keys but she’s not typing; she’s looking from Shizuo to Izaya instead, her helmet turning between them like she’s trying to get her bearings in a completely new environment. Shizuo can almost picture the crease in her forehead deepening in the moments before she ducks back over her phone and resumes typing, deleting whatever was there to replace it with some new text. Shizuo waits as patiently as he can for whatever questions she has to ask; it seems the least he can do, after Izaya’s deliberately shocking statement.

 _You’re joking._ Shizuo barely has a chance to glimpse the text on the phone -- held out towards him rather than Izaya still kept next to him by Shizuo’s grip on the other’s arm -- before Celty pulls it back in for another pattering movement of the keys. _What did Izaya do to get you here with him? Did he try to threaten you? Is everything okay?_

Izaya leans in hard against Shizuo’s side, pressing against the other’s shoulder as he makes a show of angling to get a glimpse of Celty’s phone. “It’s not nice to keep secrets,” he announces. “What are you saying?”

 _As if you’re one to talk_ , Celty snaps with such speed Shizuo can barely see her fingers moving on the phone. _What did you do to Shizuo?_

“Seduced him,” Izaya says with audible self-satisfaction on the words. “I can give you the details if that’s what you’re looking for but it seems uncouth to offer them uninvited. Unless you’re looking to change the partner in your present romance?”

“Celty’s not changing anything,” Shinra calls over from where he’s making his way around the corner from the door. “She’s staying with me, here! Aren’t you, Celty?” This last lacks some of the certainty of the first words, enough to let the words slant and slip towards a plea.

Shizuo groans. “Shut _up_ , Izaya, you’re making everything worse.”

“That is what I do best,” Izaya says. “I would hardly think this would be news to you.”

 _What did he do?_ Celty still wants to know. _Whatever it is, I’m sure we can solve it if we put our heads together!_

“Celty, you’re not really leaving, are you?”

For a moment Shizuo is caught in a wave of too-much input from the increasing edge on Shinra’s voice to the flashing speed of Celty’s fingers on her keyboard to the weight of Izaya still hanging off the full support of Shizuo’s grip on him. He can feel his attention scatter, can feel pressure building itself to a knot just against his temples; his jaw sets, his shoulders hunch, and when he takes a breath it’s with the force of rising tension filling the strain of his chest.

“Shut _up_ ,” he growls. “Everyone just hold _still_ and _listen!_ ” He doesn’t mean to yell -- he’s trying to keep his voice at a reasonable level given their circumstances -- but it’s still volume enough to bring Celty’s attention up from the screen of her phone to his face instead and to tighten the line of Izaya’s arm under Shizuo’s hold. The only person who offers an audible response is Shinra, and then it’s only to laugh delighted amusement before Shizuo turns to glare back over his shoulder with force enough to stifle the sound at Shinra’s lips, even if the smile at his mouth remains.

“Okay,” Shizuo says, turning back around to face the other two. He fixes Izaya with his attention first, frowning hard at the other as he gestures with a pointing finger. “You. Shut your mouth and keep it that way.” Izaya raises his eyebrows as high as they will go and presses his lips together into a gesture of perfect silence; Shizuo gives him a flat look but lets it go before be turns back to Celty in front of him.

“Now,” he says. “Celty. Izaya didn’t do anything.” He pauses to reconsider the strict accuracy of those words. “I mean. Nothing I didn’t want him to do. Lately.” Shizuo grimaces and ruffles a hand through his hair to shed the distraction of too-much clarification. “I just mean he’s not blackmailing me or anything. I’m doing this of my own free will.”

“High praise,” Izaya murmurs, but he’s not looking to meet Shizuo’s gaze when the other glances back to glare at him, and Shizuo doesn’t really want to bother with trying to force him into surrender. He rolls his eyes and looks back to Celty instead as he reaches for the words that were so unwilling to come to his needs on the front step.

“He’s telling the truth.” Shizuo can feel his face heat with the beginnings of a flush but he sets his jaw and goes on talking, pushing past the self-consciousness even the memory of Izaya’s words brings with them with just that casual admission. “We’re...dating.” He lets his hold on Izaya’s arm ease; he just means it to loosen his grip, but when his hand trails down it follows the line of the other’s sleeve, and when his fingers find Izaya’s palm Shizuo’s grip curls in and tightens without his conscious thought. His fingers interlace with Izaya’s, his hold fixes as tightly on Izaya’s hand as it did at the far side of the apartment door, and Shizuo can feel his shoulders ease as if he’s shrugging free of some weight, or maybe more accurately as if he’s refusing to admit to its presence. He takes a breath and lifts his head, holding himself with as much confidence as he can find in answer to the reflective shine off the visor of Celty’s helmet. “It seemed like something you should know.”

Celty stares at them for a moment; or, at least, she turns her visor in their direction. Her fingers are still over the keyboard of her phone, without so much as a twitch of abortive speech; all Shizuo can tell of her attention is the angle of her helmet, as she looks at Shizuo and then, far more briefly, at Izaya next to him. Her focus drops down to their hands, where Shizuo’s fingers are laced into the slack weight of Izaya’s in his hold; it’s only as she stares that Izaya’s hand flexes to tighten his grip against Shizuo’s. Shizuo glances sideways to see Izaya looking at their hands, his mouth set and a strange look in his eyes, and he’s just feeling the urge of a smile at the corner of his mouth when there’s a soft _thud_ and Celty drops to sit heavily at the edge of the couch behind her.

 _Y--you’re serious?_ Her phone flickers the words, trembling against her uncertain hold as she offers it, again, to Shizuo alone. _You’re actually dating_ Izaya _?_

“Your shock is very flattering” Izaya starts, but there’s a whip of shadow through the air and his words cut off instantly. When Shizuo looks over at him there’s shadow bracketing Izaya’s head from neck to nose, with pressure enough apparently to stall his speech if not his breathing. Izaya tips his head to the side to meet Shizuo’s gaze and raises an eyebrow before he ducks his head back towards Celty holding up her phone to Shizuo again.

 _How?_ She hardly waits for Shizuo to read before she’s typing again, more with shadows than with the actual weight of her fingers. _Why? How did...why did you decide to date him?_ A pause, then another flicker of shadow. _You_ hate _him._

“I don’t,” Shizuo protests, aware even as he says the words that he’s trying to undo the work of years with mere insistence in the moment. Izaya snorts from under the muzzle of Celty’s shadow and Shizuo shoots him a frown before he looks back to Celty before him. “Really. I...I thought I did, before.”

_For ten years!_

“For a _while_ ,” Shizuo amends. He lifts his free hand to rumple through his hair and sighs. “He’s been driving me crazy since the day we met. He’s infuriating, you know, always causing problems and stirring up trouble when all I want is a peaceful life.”

 _I know_ , Celty reminds him. _I don’t see how_ this _follows_. _What on earth made you even consider it?_

“I just...thought of the possibility.” Shizuo presses his mouth closed as he swallows past a burn of color in his cheeks at the thought of a roll of stolen photographs, scrolling through image after image of his own face as the shape of obsession made itself clear from what he was seeing. “I mean. I’ve spent all this time chasing him around the city. I think about him all the time, whether he’s around or not.” Shizuo lets his hand fall from the effort he’s making on his hair and lifts his shoulder in an awkward shrug. “I started wondering if maybe what I was feeling wasn’t hate at all. Maybe it never had been.”

Celty still looks skeptical. It’s strange to even have the thought about someone who technically is lacking a head on which the expressions of a face might play, but for the first time Shizuo can see what Shinra means when he rambles about understanding Celty’s heart without needing to see her face. The emotion is clear in the backwards angle of her shoulders, as if in spite of his demonstrated reassurances she still thinks he might be someone under Izaya’s influence, like he might be as likely to swing a knife at her as go on clinging to Izaya’s hand in his. She hesitates for a moment even before she resumes typing on her phone so she can offer it to him to read.

_Are you very sure you haven’t been abducted by aliens? They can do all kinds of things as part of their experiments, you know, they could have changed you into a different body entirely!_

“Oh my _god_ ,” Shizuo groans, rocking back on his heels while beside him Izaya snorts over a muffled laugh. “Is it really _that_ unbelievable that we’ve been in love with each other and were going about it all wrong?”

“Not at all!”

Shizuo had forgotten Shinra was even in the room. After his initial protest in defense of the relationship most vital to his happiness he had fallen so completely silent that Shizuo’s attention was fully absorbed in Celty’s shock and Izaya’s stress. Izaya hadn’t, clearly; his mouth is still covered to stifle any verbal acknowledgment but there’s no jolt of surprise when he turns to look over his shoulder in time with Shizuo pivoting in answer to the sound of the other’s voice. Shinra is padding across the distance of the apartment, smiling as brilliantly as the reflection glinting off his glasses as he approaches.

“It’s not strange at all,” Shinra says again as he draws to a stop and reaches to adjust his glasses. “I see where you’re coming from, of course, Celty, but you’re thinking about it in the wrong direction.” He lifts his hand to gesture towards Izaya. “After all, it’s been more Izaya’s doing than anything else that kept the feud going, and we’ve known how he feels for ages. It’s just good luck that Shizuo finally figured it out too!”

Shizuo stares. “What?” He looks back to Celty in case there’s any further information forthcoming from that direction, but she looks just as lost as Shizuo feels. “You _knew_?”

Shinra scoffs and waves his hand as if to brush away some patently foolish idea. “Of course,” he says. “I know you were distracted by flying into rages all the time, but Izaya’s been entirely in love with you since the day you met.”

Izaya makes a strangled sound on the other side of the shadow gag Celty has put on him. When Shizuo looks he has his free hand up to drag against the side of his neck, where the darkness is apparently perfectly flush with his skin; from the couch Celty startles as she types frantically on her phone.

 _Sorry, sorry!_ The shadows give way to disintegrate from the hold they have on Izaya’s mouth but he doesn’t so much as nod thanks before he’s turning to fix Shinra with a glare Shizuo thinks would be enough to frighten off anyone other than the self-proclaimed friend of the two participants in the worst fights in Ikebukuro over the last decade. “Don’t be ridiculous, Shinra, just because _you_ have no restraint when it comes to your affections doesn’t mean we’re all as obvious as you.”

Shinra blinks at Izaya without any indication of self-consciousness at the edge on the other’s words. “Well, no,” he says. “Certainly Celty is far more demure about her expressions of love. Though I wouldn’t mind a few more public displays anytime she feels like giving them!” A shadow flicks out around Shizuo’s shoulder to snap hard against Shinra’s ear; he flinches and grimaces a smile as he lifts his hand to press to the injury. “Right. As I was saying. Some people are more restrained than others, of course, but you’ve never been any kind of subtle, Izaya!”

Izaya’s fingers are flexing tighter on Shizuo’s hand, digging in so hard Shizuo can feel the edges of the other’s fingernails threatening his skin. It’s enough to urge Shizuo’s attention to the side, although Izaya isn’t looking at him; he’s watching Shinra instead, his face pale and his lips pressed close together like he’s trying to hold back some giveaway surge of emotion in his throat.

Shinra doesn’t appear to see any of the signs of danger in Izaya’s expression. He looks back to Shizuo, still beaming all over his face as if some long-term experiment has finally produced the results he had been hoping for all along.

“I really was beginning to think you had to notice eventually,” he says, his tone evoking something like conspiracy even though his volume is still more than loud enough to carry to everyone in the room. “I know how you get when you’re in a temper but he’s been just _desperate_ for your attention since you met in high school. I thought you’d be able to tell right then when you were first introduced but I guess you were too caught up in your bad mood.”

Shizuo frowns. He feels a vague need to defend himself from the implication of obliviousness carried on Shinra’s words if not his tone, but more immediately he’s interested in hearing more about this supposedly obvious information that he hadn’t noticed until it was right in front of him. “You mean when he _stabbed_ me?”

Shinra waves his hand to brush this aside as a perfectly normal opening foray to romance. “After sitting around for half an hour waiting for you to turn around and notice him. I thought he’d throw out his back or something with how carefully he was trying to pose to look casual as soon as you looked his way.”

Izaya makes another strangled noise, although there’s no longer any barrier over his mouth to keep him from finding words. His face is flushing, now, the pallor of his cheeks fading to a stain of self-consciousness as Shinra goes on talking. “I wasn’t _posing_.”

“Yes you were,” Shinra says. “And you kept picking fights just to keep his attention on you too.” He looks back to Shizuo, still beaming the smile of a proud father at his child’s wedding. “Do you know how many times he came by to get some scratch bandaged up just so he would be around when you showed up after a fight?”

Shizuo’s eyes go wide. “That was on _purpose_?”

Shinra nods without the least hesitation. “That’s not even mentioning the way you come up in every conversation. We could be talking about the weather in Hokkaido and he’d find some way to bring the topic back around to you.”

“You’re _friends_ ,” Izaya attempts, although his claim to objectivity is deeply undermined by the color bleeding scarlet all across the arch of his cheekbones. “I was being considerate and leading the conversations to subjects that would interest you.”

“Oh, sure,” Shinra says brightly. “You never went out of your way to bring up Celty, though, right?” Izaya closes his mouth and Shinra looks back to Shizuo. “I’m honestly surprised that it took this long. I was beginning to think you might actually just be too heterosexual to realize how wildly in love Izaya-kun was with you.”

Shizuo chokes over the rhythm of his breathing. “ _What_?”

“Not that you’ve ever seemed particularly interested in women either,” Shinra goes on, as calmly as if he’s noticing neither Shizuo’s exclamation nor Izaya’s crimson flush. “I mean, even spending as much time as you do with Celty, you’ve never once tried to steal her away from me. For a while I’d been thinking you might just not be interested at all.” He claps his hands together and beams at Shizuo. “But for Izaya’s sake, at least, I’m glad to know you just hadn’t noticed!”

There’s a great deal in what Shinra has just said that Shizuo would like to investigate, or maybe just protest outright, but under the circumstances the question of his sexuality or nonexistent interest in Celty are irrelevant. He shakes his head to shed the distraction of Shinra’s rambling topics and to come into focus on the important one. “You _knew_ Izaya was…interested in me all this time?”

Shinra nods. “Of course.”

“How?” Shizuo frowns. “Did he tell you?”

Shinra shakes his head. “No, of course not,” he says, dropping into a tone akin to a professor offering a repeated explanation to a particularly slow student. “He’s been just as insistent that he hated you over these years as you were. But he brought you up all the time, in every conversation, always wanting to know what you had said to Celty or who you were spending time with.” Izaya makes a strangled sound but Shinra doesn’t so much as glance his way. “He always said that it was just because he wanted to keep tabs on you to better protect the city, but that’s ridiculous, it’s not as if he’s ever cared about the wellbeing of the city before. And calling you a monster?” Shinra laughs as if the cutting edge of Izaya’s most familiar insult is a grand joke all in itself. “He’s been so desperate to bend over backwards to keep you from being part of the humans he loves, it was obvious you were something special to him. I think he was actually jealous during that whole mess with the demon sword.”

“He was?” Shizuo looks to Izaya still standing next to him, staring fixedly at the far wall of the apartment as if focus will somehow undo the flaming blush painted all across his cheekbones. “You were?”

“He’s always been obsessed with you,” Shinra says brightly. “I’ve been impressed myself with the lengths he was willing to go to just to get you to notice him, but whatever works, I guess!”

“Right,” Izaya says, speaking loudly to pitch his voice clear over Shinra’s cheerful tone. “This trip down memory lane is _charming_ but we’ve gotten off the point a bit, don’t you think?”

“No,” Shizuo says immediately. “I want to hear more about this.” Izaya gives him the flattest look Shizuo thinks he’s earned for himself since before he merited the title of boyfriend and Shizuo grins back at him without hesitation.

“If you want more information about my adolescence you’re free to take it from Shinra just as soon as I’m not around,” Izaya says, conveniently ignoring the fact that the subject at hand is behavior that spans the present day up until all of a week ago. “I have better things to do than stick around while Shinra reminisces.” He tosses his head to urge his hair back from his face and looks over at Celty still sitting heavy-limbed with shock in the chair behind her. “Is this enough announcement to satisfy you, Shizu-chan?”

“I dunno,” Shizuo says, and follows Izaya’s gaze to look to Celty. “Celty?” Celty’s helmet lifts to turn up to him and Shizuo offers a smile that is sincere, at least, even if it flickers over the strain of apology even as he forms it.

“Sorry to drop such a surprise on you,” he says, gazing into the shine of her visor as the best approximation of meeting her gaze he has available to him. “Everything happened really fast.” He pauses to consider the handful of days that have passed since he was last in this apartment, sitting on the couch behind Celty as he scowled at the photographs in the phone in his hand. “ _Really_ fast.” He shakes his head to shed the image and recenter himself in the present. “I’m not joking, though. We really are dating.”

Celty’s helmet turns from Shizuo to Izaya next to him, lingering for a moment like she’s trying to get a read on the other’s expression before she ducks down to look at her phone again as she types. Shadow flickers, characters form against the screen, and she lifts it back up in Shizuo’s direction.

_Why Izaya?_

It’s a ridiculous question. It’s the only question. Shizuo reads it twice, letting the uncertainty of the words sink in as he frames his answer in his head; at his side Izaya leans in to read over his shoulder, but for once he has no commentary to offer at all. Even Shinra has gone quiet in the moment of tension suffusing the room. Finally Shizuo takes a deep breath, feeling a little as if he’s bracing himself for some blow before he heaves it out in a single rush of air and lifts his shoulder into a shrug.

“He loves me,” Shizuo says. “And I realized I loved him too.”

Celty lets her phone drop down to her lap; her hands catch at either side but she doesn’t move to form new words against the display any more than she looks to Izaya at Shizuo’s side. Shizuo watches her, meeting the focus of her attention even if he can’t meet her eyes, until finally Celty heaves a voiceless sigh and her shoulders slump under the dark of her usual clothes. Her fingers flicker over her phone again but there’s less tension in them this time, even if she’s moving just as rapidly, and when she lifts the screen again it’s angled for Izaya’s consideration as much as for Shizuo’s.

 _I can’t argue with that._ She draws her phone back to type a few more characters into it. _Congratulations._

“Congratulations indeed!” Shinra says from behind them, punctuating with a clap of his hands loud enough to startle the tension out of Shizuo’s shoulders. He’s beaming when Shizuo looks back at him. “I’ve been hoping for this for years!” His shoulders drop a little, his hands lower. “Not _expecting_ it, of course, but definitely hoping. I’m so glad you finally worked things out!” He catches a breath and opens his eyes wide behind his glasses. “We should have a hotpot party to celebrate!”

“Hotpot?” Izaya repeats, his voice cutting with its usual acerbic edge. “In the middle of summer? We’re all likely to die of heatstroke.”

Shinra waves this away. “It’ll be fine,” he says, apparently intending to overcome all protests with sheer unflagging optimism. “Let me see what we have in the house. Celty, could you go out for some shopping for whatever else we need?”

 _Of course_ , Celty offers, but Shinra’s already turning away without waiting to read her response. She gets to her feet from the chair but hesitates for a moment before Shizuo and Izaya. Shizuo can see her pause over giving voice to her question, her fingers hovering over the keys before she ducks her helmet to type rapidfire.

_You two really aren’t going to try to kill each other?_

“No,” Izaya answers, while Shizuo is still reading the text in front of him. “Shizu-chan is safe with me, don’t worry.” He lifts his shoulder in a shrug and cuts his gaze towards Shizuo. “Not that that’s really changed, I suppose. I don’t think I was ever really a match for you.”

“You were _faster_ than me,” Shizuo tells him. “Which was basically the same thing, the way you fought.”

Izaya flickers a grin at him. “A strategy born of necessity. I’m not that much of an idiot, to think I could hold my ground against your physical strength.”

“You pulled me into it anyway,” Shizuo says, smiling in spite of himself; and then he realizes that Celty’s still standing watching them, and looks back with a surge of guilt for ignoring her. “Sorry, Celty.”

 _This is weird_ , Celty types; and then, sudden and rushed, _Not bad! I just._ There’s a long pause while her fingers hover silence over the keys. _I never thought I’d see you two...teasing each other_.

“It’s a new world,” Izaya drawls. “Abnormal enough for you, Headless Rider?”

Celty’s shoulders quiver with a silent laugh. _I’m just glad you’re not fighting._ She holds the phone out for the both of them to read, aiming the screen somewhere between Shizuo’s gaze and Izaya’s, but when she reaches out a hand it’s to press against Shizuo’s shoulder. Her grip weights, tightens for a moment, and then draws away as she snaps her phone shut and whisks it up into the sleeve of her jumpsuit. She steps past them to head for the kitchen, where Shinra is rattling cabinets open and calling out incoherent commentary about what is or is not inside, and Shizuo and Izaya are left standing together at the edge of the living room, effectively alone for a moment.

Izaya takes a careful breath. He’s looking at the other two when Shizuo looks down at him, his head turned deliberately to the side so Shizuo is seeing him only in profile, but the angle isn’t enough to hide the color still flushing to pink over his cheeks and tense against the line of his mouth. His throat works when he swallows before speaking.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to hearing you confess.” He’s speaking softly, although he must know Shizuo’s listening; that much is clear in the deliberate focus of his gaze elsewhere as much as the strain of his shoulders under his dark coat.

Shizuo looks at Izaya for a moment, just gazing at the lines of the other’s face made familiar by the passage of the years they have spent chasing and being chased by each other. Then he takes a breath of his own and ducks in over the few inches of distance between them to touch his lips almost against Izaya’s ear.

“You’ll have plenty of opportunity,” Shizuo murmurs. Izaya’s head tips towards him, Izaya’s lashes flutter with anticipation, and Shizuo ducks his head forward to press his forehead against Izaya’s hair. “I love you, Izaya.”

The words are hardly a novel declaration, so soon after Shizuo’s direct statement to Celty; but with the way Izaya’s breath rushes onto a spill of warm surprise, Shizuo thinks this is something he’ll never get tired of repeating.


	7. Backdrop

“I still don’t believe you,” Izaya declares as he kicks his foot out to press the toe of his shoe close against the glass of the window alongside him. “There’s no _way_ you just casually dropped that bombshell into conversation like that.”

Shizuo frowns at the side of the other’s head. It’s the best he can manage at the moment, from the side of the café table he’s currently sharing with Izaya and with Izaya’s gaze fixed on the pedestrians passing in the street below, but he feels the flippant tone of the other’s words deserves some kind of protest, even if it’s just the show of it. “Why not?” he asks. “We _are_ dating. Everyone else already knows, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal that I told Kadota.”

“You keep acting like it’s nothing special,” Izaya says. He has his elbow propped on the edge of the table, alongside the cup of steaming coffee in front of him and with his chin caught at the support of his hand at his chin; the position makes a more effective wall than Shizuo wishes it did between himself and the tipped-away line of Izaya’s shoulders, as if the other is more engaged in the motion of the strangers on the street than in Shizuo right next to him. “But you were there with Celty the same as I was. If she weren’t a Dullahan I think you’d have given her a heart attack on the spot. Everyone in the city knows you hate me, Shizu-chan, you don’t think announcing you’ve been fucking me senseless is going to be something of a shock?”

“You seem pretty coherent to me,” Shizuo informs him. “It shouldn’t matter. It _doesn’t_ matter.”

“It does matter,” Izaya says, still looking out the window at the city around them. “People care about these things.” He reaches for his coffee cup to fit his hand carefully against the heat of the ceramic, grimacing a little at the warmth but not pulling away. “You might as well be a celebrity like your brother. Hanejima Yuuhei can hardly go around declaring that he’s dating someone, now can he?”

“That’s different.” Shizuo frowns as Izaya lets his hand fall away from the support it’s provided to angle in front of him instead, draping over the edge of the café table as he turns his focus to the steaming liquid in the cup before him. “People don’t obsess over me like they do over him.”

Izaya’s eyebrows lift and he huffs a laugh down towards the surface of his coffee. “Oh, Shizu-chan, I beg to differ.”

Shizuo can’t help but smile at that. “People other than _you_.”

There was a time not a week before that this would have brought crimson surging to Izaya’s face, would have pressed his lips together and tightened his throat on a protest, whether he found it in him to give it voice or not. Now he just smiles and lifts his cup from its saucer as he leans in against his bracing elbow and blows carefully over the surface.

“I’m enough,” he says, his gaze still fixed on the liquid rather than on Shizuo next to him. The angle of his downcast gaze feathers the shadow of his lashes over his eyes; Shizuo can see the weight of them casting arcs of dark across the other’s cheekbones without even looking for it. “We almost tore the city apart between us, after all. You don’t think that’s worth acknowledging?”

“Sure,” Shizuo says. “We didn’t. People should be glad that we’re working things out more constructively.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums. “Goodness knows _I_ am.” He lets his leg tip out under the table between them to bump against Shizuo’s alongside him, although he doesn’t look up to meet the other’s stare as he smiles into his cup. “Sometimes I think it’s a miracle we ever leave my apartment at all, the way you carry on.”

Shizuo snorts. “ _Me_ ,” he repeats. “I can hardly make it through your front door before you’re on me, lately.”

“I trust you’d let me know if you disapproved,” Izaya says with easy flippancy. “I don’t think _that_ highly of my own strength to imagine I’d go head-to-head with you in close quarters.” The words are quick, his tone light; it’s only the lift of his gaze coming up to meet Shizuo’s attention that flickers heat all through Shizuo’s body in answer, that tightens his shoulders and flexes in his thighs in the rush of desire that seems to come at Izaya’s beck and call, lately. That stare makes the phrasing a suggestion, sparks all the creativity of Shizuo’s mind on the subject of Izaya close enough to touch, to hold, to feel fabric sliding up and away from pale skin and the rasp of that even breathing going ragged with heat as Shizuo presses him to the wall, as Shizuo’s mouth finds the rhythm of his heartbeat racing in his throat. Shizuo has to look away from Izaya’s gaze and fix his attention on the drink set on the table in front of him, wishing that it offered the relief of cool ice rather than the steam he really doesn’t think he needs right now.

Izaya’s exhale comes with the edge of a laugh on it; when Shizuo glances up at him the other is leaning back in his chair again, tilting himself into such a show of comfort that it makes Shizuo feel the tension in his own body the more clearly. “Though I have to admit,” he says, bringing his cup to his lips for a sip of coffee that involves a lot more pressure at his mouth than Shizuo thinks can possibly be reasonable. “I _have_ always had the upper hand when it comes to wordplay. It’s good to know it’s easy to get a _rise_ out of you with more than just anger.”

Shizuo’s breath leaves the tension of his chest with enough force to strip it down to a growl as his shoulders hunch in to shadow his hips under the table, as if Izaya really needs any visual confirmation when Shizuo can feel his whole face going red with the heat stirring in answer even to the taunt of Izaya’s words. “Shut up,” he says. “You’re talking as if you’re not as desperate as I am the moment we get anything like privacy.”

“I’m not critiquing your physical prowess,” Izaya tells him without any indication of alarm at the weight of Shizuo’s words. Shizuo wonders, not for the first time, exactly how much control he gave up when he handed over the spark of the anger that has always guided their interactions before; but then again, it’s not as if he ever really had control over that even before, he supposes. “When you’re free to get your hands on me in the confines of my own home you’re certainly more than skilled enough.” He rocks forward against the support of his elbow at the table, leaning in far over the surface beneath him as he flickers a taunting smile at Shizuo. “I’m just observing the obvious fact that when it comes to the subtler arts of flirtation, you don’t hold a candle to me.”

Shizuo rocks back hard in his chair, his self-consciousness forgotten in favor of surprise. “You don’t think I can _flirt_?”

“You rely on your strength,” Izaya says, grinning with an edge sharp enough to cut. “Not that I mind, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” He leans to the side to press his shoulder to the window next to him as his knee angles out to urge closer against Shizuo’s; the motion draws the whole line of his body into a sinuous curve. “You’re all but incoherent if you can’t get your hands on me.”

Shizuo growls over a breath in the back of his throat. “I can _flirt_.”

Izaya straightens at once, so fast that Shizuo can’t help but feel he’s been led directly into one or another of Izaya’s traps. “Fine,” he says. “Prove it.”

Shizuo raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“Prove it,” Izaya repeats. “You’re so good with words, right? I’m sure you have untapped wells of potential.” He flashes Shizuo a smile; it might be inviting, except for the teasing shadow behind his eyes, like a wall of confident security to any foray Shizuo might make. “Why don’t you tell me what you want instead of showing me, for once?”

Shizuo grimaces. “We’re in _public_.”

“So what?” Izaya says. “It’s just words.” He lifts his hand to gesture around the café. “No one’s listening. There’s hardly anyone here anyway.” He braces his elbow at the table again and catches his chin in his hand as he leans forward to offer the temptation of his smile to Shizuo in front of him. “What kind of things do you think about doing to me, Shizu-chan?” His lashes flutter into invitation. “I’ll all ears.”

Shizuo scowls at Izaya. There’s a protest on his tongue, the words of resistance ready to form themselves around the shape of habitual frustration, of the irritation that always rises ready-made to answer that smile. But he’s lost the knack of anger, lately; the curve of that teasing smirk urges a different kind of heat into his veins, now, and when he meets the bright of those eyes he finds himself lost in the weight of dark lashes instead of striking sparks off the unreadable barrier they form. Izaya’s wrist draws his imagination to sharp edges, the curve of Izaya’s neck parts his lips on the weight of heat, and when he looks to the dip of the other’s collarbone it’s the shadow of his own mouth he finds there, the print of a bruise lingering just at the boundary of cloth hiding Izaya’s skin from view. Shizuo stares at that mark for a long moment as his memory sparks bright to offer the details of Izaya’s bare skin, the shift of his body and the sound of heat in his throat, and when he takes a breath to fill his lungs it’s with intention at his lips instead of protest.

“I think about kissing you,” he says, speaking soft so his voice won’t carry but with resonance enough that he can feel the words purr against the inside of his chest. Izaya’s grin goes wider, catching towards the beginnings of mockery, but Shizuo keeps talking without giving him a chance to offer the commentary he’s clearly considering. “Your mouth, obviously.” Shizuo snorts a half-formed laugh. “It’s a better way to shut you up than asking, seems like. But everywhere else too.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums. His lashes are heavy, his gaze smoky to match the curl of his smile. “Where did you have in mind?”

“I’m getting there,” Shizuo says with only a little bit of impatience on his tone. “Your shoulders, just against the line of your collar.” He lifts a hand to indicate, sweeping his fingers through the space over the shadow of Izaya’s shirt without reaching far enough to make contact with the other’s bare skin. “I can see your collarbones, sometimes, when you lean forward or lift your arm. I always want to get my mouth against the shadows there.”

He draws his hand back, retreating towards the edge of the table before brushing his fingers against the weight of Izaya’s sleeve hanging loose around his arms. “Your wrists, next, I think. Right against the joint here --” as he gestures at the outside angle of the other’s arm “-- and here” along the inside, where blue veins make a lattice under pale skin. “I want to see if I can feel your heartbeat against my lips, if I hold still.” Izaya draws his hand in towards himself, angling it down to press flat to the table like he’s trying to cover up the giveaway of the rhythm fluttering under his skin, but Shizuo just lets his hand drop to his side and looks back up to meet Izaya’s dark gaze with the direct force of his own.

“I’d want to kiss your eyelids,” he says, letting the words form to perfect clarity in spite of the soft of his tone. “Just against your lashes, so light you could barely feel me touching you. And against the inside of your knees, carefully, since you’re ticklish.”

Izaya shakes his head. “I’m not ticklish.” Shizuo raises an eyebrow and Izaya’s cheeks darken with the suggestion of a flush. “Sounds like you’re just playing with me, now.”

“That would just be foreplay,” Shizuo says. “I’d kiss up the inside of your thighs, eventually, slow so you wouldn’t be sure how fast I’d make it up them, until you’re hard without me touching you at all.” He pauses to take a sip of his drink but Izaya doesn’t try to interrupt him this time; he’s just watching Shizuo, his gaze darker than it has been and his lips pressed to stillness. Shizuo takes his time with his drink before he settles himself with both elbows against the table and takes a breath to continue.

“I’d turn you face-down,” Shizuo says, with as much calm as he can find for the shadow on his voice. “Let you lie still and wait for me while I got the lube.”

Izaya’s mouth drags onto a momentary smirk. “What if I turned back over?”

“I’d hold you down one-handed,” Shizuo says immediately. “Just against the small of your back, right over your ass, so you couldn’t wiggle away. I’d sit on you, after, so I could have both hands free to get my fingers wet.”

“And then back to holding me steady?”

Shizuo shakes his head. “I’d need my hands for something else.” He shifts in his seat to rock farther back against the chair and cast his hips into somewhat deeper shadow, although he’s pretty sure his efforts to hide his obvious arousal are futile beyond what privacy their somewhat isolated position offers. “I’d push your knees apart wide, until there’s space for me to lie down between your thighs and press my mouth up against you.” Izaya’s eyes open wider for a heartbeat of surprise; Shizuo can feel his mouth tense on the shudder of a smile, but he goes on speaking in the same deliberate, level tone he’s adopted.

“With my fingers slick already I wouldn’t have to stop to get the lube back out,” he observes. “I could just lick up into you for as long as I wanted. I’d use a finger after a little while to get deeper into you than I could with my tongue, just to push into you and feel you tensing around me.”

Shizuo’s reasonably sure there’s no one within earshot of them even if they were speaking at a more casual volume, but he lowers his voice in any case, leaning forward so Izaya tips in to match him, until they’re near enough that their hair is all but brushing. “I love how tight you get,” Shizuo murmurs, like he’s outlining the shape of a kiss against Izaya’s parted lips. “You can’t lie about how you’re feeling when I’m inside you, your body gives you away every time. It’s easy to tell what you like. Where you want me to touch.” He swallows to clear some of the tension in his throat but Izaya doesn’t so much as open his mouth to speak; he’s gazing at Shizuo as if entranced, like he’s entirely handed over speech of his own in favor of listening to the sound of the other’s voice.

“I’d get you off like that first,” Shizuo tells him, still in that rough undertone as intimate as a whisper against the back of Izaya’s neck would be. “Just one finger inside you, maybe two. Maybe licking against you while I’m working with my fingers too, so I can feel the way you clench around me when you’re close to coming. I’d keep going, too, even when you’re coming for me already, just stroking inside you so you keep going until you’re shaking and gasping against the sheets underneath you.” Izaya’s lashes dip, just once, shifting like he’s fighting to keep his gaze focused on Shizuo’s, but Shizuo doesn’t look away to give him the space to collect himself. His arms are braced steady against the table beneath him, his shoulders flexing to tilt him forward and in; he takes a breath, feels the heat of it aching in his chest, and then lets himself go on.

“I’d turn you back over after that,” he says, as calmly as he can manage. “While you’re still flushed and shaky from coming the first time, so I can pull you over on your back and lay you out in front of me, with your legs open and your eyes dark and your come still wet against your stomach. You’d be wanting me to fuck you but I’d hold your hands up above your head to pin your down to the bed so I could just look at you for a while.” Shizuo lets his gaze flicker over Izaya’s face for a moment; Izaya’s eyes are heavy-lidded, now, his cheeks holding to a color to match the part of his lips. Shizuo can see Izaya’s mouth shift as Shizuo looks at him, can see the shift of the other’s tongue touch damp against it before he swallows. Shizuo doesn’t smile; he just brings his gaze up to meet Izaya’s eyes again, to see the shadows in the attention still fixed on him and waiting on the fall of his next words.

“You’re so beautiful right after you come,” Shizuo tells Izaya, murmuring the words even more softly than those that have come before. “I like seeing you like that, when you’re too hot to think of anything to say and you’re having trouble even keeping your eyes in focus. Your whole body is hot, all your skin goes pink and you tremble everywhere I touch you like you’re electrified.” Shizuo shifts his hand against the table and Izaya’s gaze drops, his attention dipping to cling close against the motion of the other’s fingers as if it’s been beckoned there.

“I’d touch you for a while,” Shizuo tells him. “Against your knees, I think. At your neck, to feel the pace of your heart. Over your chest to hear the sound you make when I touch your nipples. Down your stomach, just over your cock, until you’re trying to arch up off the bed and I can feel your arms straining under my hold.” Shizuo rocks in closer to actually bump Izaya’s head with his own. “Until you were begging for it.”

Izaya’s lashes lift for a moment, just enough for his gaze to meet Shizuo’s. His cheeks are flushed entirely, now, red staining the arch of his cheekbones as if he really is spread out across the sheets of his bed, as if he has the traces of his orgasm still clinging sticky to his skin. His whole body is tipped in over his elbow at the table, his usual careful posture abandoned for the forward curve of rising heat; Shizuo watches his gaze drop to Shizuo’s lips and hold there for a long moment before Izaya swallows and speaks without looking up.

“Please,” he says, breathing the word almost without voice at all. “Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo pauses for a moment, just to feel the tension in the air, to savor the strain in Izaya’s shoulders tilted in towards him with such entire focus. His cock is aching inside his slacks, the whole length of it pinned close to the weight of his clothes by the arousal coursing through him; there’s something intoxicating about the ache of it, about the rising force of unobtainable pleasure stirred to heights by the force of his words. He shifts his shoulder to steady himself, and rocks his hips back against the support of the chair behind him, and then he speaks again against the dark of Izaya’s hair.

“I wouldn’t let your hands go,” Shizuo tells him. “I’d keep your wrists up over your head and just undo my pants enough to get myself free of them. Then I’d get my hand around your knee to lift you up off the bed, to bring you in closer to me so I could fit us together.” Izaya lifts his gaze from the table to look out, around the café surrounding them; against the edge of the table his elbow shifts to drop his arm away from the support and down in front of him instead. He braces his palm against the edge of his seat, locking his elbow to hold himself steady before he shifts his weight forward to pin his hips tight against the inside line of his wrist. Shizuo presses his lips together to swallow heat from his voice before he goes on.

“I’d take you all at once,” he says. “After my fingers and my tongue you’d be able to take me on the first thrust. I’d be hot from waiting for so long, I’d want to be inside you all at once.” Izaya’s thighs strain to buck him forward and grind against the support of his arm; his lashes flutter even as he gazes out at the rest of the café. Shizuo shifts his elbows against the edge of the table to lean hard on one and free his other arm to reach out and grab at Izaya’s forearm, to drag his hand up and free of the tension of his legs; Izaya hisses in his throat, nearly giving voice to a whimper, but Shizuo keeps his hold to brace Izaya’s arm and his own out into the shadows under the table as he tips his head forward to press against the dark of the other’s hair as he growls suggestion like a promise against his ear.

“I wouldn’t touch you,” he says. “I’d just hold you in place like that, one hand holding your wrists and one at your leg to brace you steady while I took you.” Izaya’s leaning in towards him, tilting as if drawn by a magnet to the weight of Shizuo’s head pressing against his own, but Shizuo doesn’t pull away from the curve of the other’s ear and doesn’t stop the tumble of his words. “I’d go slow, take long strokes to press as deep inside you as I could go, until I felt you tensing around me with each thrust, and I’d keep going like that, longer than you expect me to, until your whole body is tense, until you’re grabbing at my hand holding you down and your toes are curling where I’m holding your leg up.”

Izaya’s throat works over a swallow. “Shizu-chan.” It’s a whisper, too soft to carry any more specificity than the sound itself, but Shizuo feels the heat of it like a plea all the same, as surely as if Izaya had groaned it against the give of his lips.

“I’d keep fucking you,” he promises. “Until you can’t think. Until you can’t talk. Until you’re gasping like you can’t breathe, until you’re arching back where I’m holding you. Until you come again like that, with me holding you open so I can see you shaking with it as I come into you while you’re spilling over yourself again.” Shizuo’s heart is racing as if he’s describing reality, as if he’s urging himself into motion with his words instead of just straining his body onto heat; before him Izaya’s lips are parted on his breathing and his face is flushed red. Even with his hand held away from the front of his pants Shizuo thinks it must be entirely clear what topic they’re lingering over, between the color at Izaya’s cheeks and the racing speed of their breathing; at the moment it’s hard even to acknowledge that the rest of the room exists.

Shizuo presses his lips together. There’s a moment of absolute silence, as the absence of his voice seems to echo with more force than his words did; then he swallows, and finds words for himself. “Good enough for you, Izaya?”

Izaya’s head shifts towards Shizuo so minimally Shizuo is sure the motion would be invisible to the audience they don’t have; it’s only the press of his forehead against Izaya’s hair that lets him feel the shift. “Shizu-chan.” Izaya’s wrist flexes in Shizuo’s hold as his fingers tighten and curl onto a fist for a moment before they ease. “If you let go of me I’ll get on my knees and suck you off right here.”

Shizuo huffs a breath that falls somewhere between laughter and the heat surging up his spine. “We’re in public.”

Izaya tips his head farther to the side; this time his breath spills against the corner of Shizuo’s lips from how close their mouths are. “I could not _possibly_ care less.”

For a moment Shizuo can imagine it: Izaya sliding off his chair with that uncanny grace he used to show in their chases around the city, his elegance turned now to far less violent and far more pleasant pursuits. His fingers would make fast work of Shizuo’s fly; Shizuo can feel his cock pulse with heat at the thought of Izaya’s mouth sliding down over him, at the feel of the slick-hot friction pressing against the aching want he’s been knotting into himself with the force of his own words. His fingers tighten against Izaya’s wrist, flexing for a moment of consideration; and then he collects himself, and sighs an exhale, and eases his hold with deliberate intent. “Let’s go back to your place.”

Izaya groans. “Tease.”

“Never.” Shizuo lifts his head to press his mouth close to the corner of Izaya’s, just for a moment of contact. Even in public, he’s willing to take a moment of indulgence for this. “I’ll take you home and show you how serious I am as soon as you finish your coffee.”

“Fine.” Izaya pulls against Shizuo’s hold on his wrist with force enough that Shizuo lets his grip go to free the other as soon as he urges. He reaches for his cup of coffee in front of him as part of the same movement that pulls him sitting upright instead of tipped far to the side against Shizuo next to him; when he brings the cup to his mouth it’s to tip his head back at once as his throat works over the action of swallowing. There’s a moment of effort as he downs most of the drink at once; then he sets it back into place on the saucer with a decisive _clink_ and braces at the edge of the table to push himself back and away. “Come on, then, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo finishes the last of his own drink at once, struggling to manage the motion around the grin pulling at his lips; by the time he’s setting his cup down and pushing to his feet Izaya has his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth set onto a line of impatience that nearly disguises the color still hot across his cheeks. For his own part Shizuo’s still hot all through his body in spite of the amusement pulling at his lips; he’s sure their intentions must be less than inconspicuous to anyone who glances their way as Izaya takes hold of his wrist to pull him bodily towards the door of the café. But he’s warm with victory, and with a point well-proven, and with Izaya’s fingers tight at his wrist and the distance to the privacy of the other’s apartment evaporating with every rushed step forward they take, Shizuo can’t find it in him to mind.

He’s never been able to spare much thought for his surroundings when he’s with Izaya.


	8. Storyboard

Izaya thinks he could get used to waking up like this.

It’s always a pleasure to have Shizuo over. The first night was strange, tense and awkward until they fell into comfort against each other’s bodies and shed what self-consciousness they might have had along with their clothes; after that Izaya learned his lesson about how to start the night, and evenings together begin in the bedroom, or on the couch, or against the edge of the kitchen counter, before they progress to something somewhat more sedate. Izaya never asks Shizuo to stay the night -- even now, that seems too forward, with too much risk of rejection lingering over it -- but after the first time Shizuo barely bothers with token permission before he makes use of Izaya’s shower and falls asleep with sprawling grace in Izaya’s bed. The first week he spends more than half the evenings tangled in the other’s sheets, and if Izaya can’t help but be leery of sinking into too-much comfort it’s hard to think that there’s any chance of Shizuo changing his mind when he dreams with Shizuo’s hold around him and wakes to the press of kisses against the back of his neck. It’s a pleasant way to start the day, to find himself lying limp with languid heat in the tangled sheets while Shizuo is dressing to go out to work, and Izaya can’t find it in him to even mind the minor hit to his productivity the distraction causes. The days are interspersed with phone calls, the sound of Shizuo’s voice at Izaya’s ear every moment he can claim for a cigarette or a short meal break, and Izaya spends his afternoons wandering through the city with the promise of a meeting waiting for him instead of in desperate hope of forcing one. It’s strange, like falling sideways into a dream that refuses to give way no matter how impossibly far it strays from reason and rationality, but the more time Izaya spends learning the fit of Shizuo’s body against his and the sound of Shizuo’s smile under his words, the more he can feel himself fitting into place in this unbelievable existence that seems to have formed itself around him from the shadows of dreams and fantasies held too long to be expectations.

It’s a slow morning, today. Izaya’s work doesn’t have the boundaries a boss or an office would impose on him, and that means he’s free to linger as late in rising as he pleases, depending on the day, and Shizuo has one of his rare free days from patrolling the city alongside his employer. Izaya thinks they’ve been awake for an hour, or at least Shizuo has -- Izaya himself stirred towards consciousness some time previously, but he’s not found himself interested in moving before Shizuo starts to rise -- but neither of them has made any motion towards the edges of the bed they’re lying in any more than they’ve yet hurried on towards anything more focused than drowsy kissing against sleep-warmed skin.

Izaya’s lying diagonally across the bed, now, one leg angled out from under the blankets thrown across his chest and his attention turned towards the glow of light at the window as Shizuo lies atop him, one arm braced alongside Izaya’s chest as if to hold the other still and his mouth marking lazy patterns against Izaya’s collarbone. There’s the start of heat stirring in Izaya’s belly, some part of his morning desire mingling seamlessly with the weight of Shizuo against him, but he’s not even lifting his hands to touch against Shizuo’s hair; he’s just lying flat on the bed, gazing at the window and letting his mind fit the shape of dreams to the present while he marvels over how seamlessly the two overlay.

It takes Izaya a moment to realize Shizuo has stalled. Sometimes the other will draw slow and lingering over some motion, like he’s forgotten what he was in the middle of doing; with Izaya’s attention distracted by drowsiness and imagination alike it’s long seconds before he realizes that Shizuo has ceased the press of his mouth, has in fact stopped moving at all. Izaya blinks, bringing himself back to the present via the shiver of irrational paranoia that he can’t help feeling, even now, as if Shizuo is under some kind of spell and likely to startle awake at a sudden motion; but when he looks down Shizuo is just watching him, his eyes soft enough to urge aside Izaya’s fears for at least the moment even if the other is clearly turning over some thought in his mind.

“What’s the matter?” Izaya asks, although there’s not much indication of an actual problem in Shizuo’s eyes as much as contemplation. He lets the corner of his mouth twist up onto a smirk, although it carries a little more tension than he wishes it did, even with the excuse of teasing behind it. “Did you forget who you’re sleeping with?”

Shizuo shakes his head, dismissing Izaya’s half-serious teasing as if it’s no more than the joke Izaya is framing it as. Izaya can’t decide if he is more appreciative or frustrated by Shizuo’s ease in brushing aside the specters that haunt his own too-vivid imagination; right now, though, with the reassurance of the other’s presence immediately with him, he can’t muster anything more bitter than pleasure that never ceases to surprise him, no matter how often he feels it.

“I was just thinking.” Shizuo lowers his head to rest his chin against Izaya’s shoulder while he goes on gazing up at the other’s face. “We spent so much time not doing this.”

“Yes,” Izaya says, deliberately flippant in his tone. “I’ve had similar considerations. The need for sleeping and eating are truly unfortunate. Only _think_ how much more time you could spend fucking me if we didn’t have to give up a large portion of the night to rest.”

Shizuo coughs a laugh in the back of his throat. “You know that’s not what I mean.” That’s something new, too, that Izaya isn’t yet used to: laughter instead of anger, amusement instead of temper. It makes him feel warm and dizzy at one and the same time, like his grasp on reality has melted away to leave him tumbling into some existence he can’t quite fix as his own, yet.

He presses his lips together, this time, pinning his expression to restraint since he can’t entirely master the pounding of his heart to stillness. “It _has_ been a while,” he allows. “But I had every reason to believe you hated me. It didn’t seem like a confession was likely to achieve more than getting me a broken nose sooner rather than later.”

“I dunno.” Shizuo grins up at Izaya with the same unflinching ease that Izaya has always envied in the other’s existence. It’s easier to bear from this close up. “I might have been startled enough to give you a minute or two to explain.”

“Not a chance I was particularly enthusiastic about taking,” Izaya informs him. “You certainly never gave me the least impression that you would welcome being the lead in my many and varied fantasies, in any case.”

Shizuo hums in the back of his throat. “Yeah,” he says, but his tone is going warm with interest instead of teasing, and when he shifts there’s something of intention behind it instead of the idle adjustment towards greater comfort that he’s been seeking out thus far. “That was definitely a surprise to find out.”

“Good,” Izaya says. “If I had had my way you never would have. I’m glad my efforts in that pursuit weren’t _entirely_ wasted.”

Shizuo frowns. “Aren’t you glad I did?” He sounds sincere enough on the question, as if he’s really uncertain of the answer; it makes Izaya sigh and roll his eyes with enough drama to convey his reply before he gives it.

“I suppose so,” he says, and shifts his weight into a motion intended to seem casual that just happens to run his hip up against the line of Shizuo’s thigh next to him. “It’s certainly more pleasant to have a partner to act out my fantasies instead of just myself. I can only manage so much on my own, after all.”

“Mm,” Shizuo hums, grinning all over his face now. “You manage a lot, I think.” He tips his head against Izaya’s shoulder to rest his head against the support; his arm at the other’s side comes up to catch at the top edge of the blanket drawn up over Izaya’s chest and urge it down, slowly enough that the motion carries idle curiosity as much as directed interest. “What kind of things did you think about?”

Izaya raises an eyebrow, although the weight of this expression goes unseen due to Shizuo’s continued attention to urging the blanket down his chest. He lifts his arm up over his head instead, angling his wrist to fall over the pillows as he heaves a sigh as close to resignation as he can get it when he can feel his heartbeat coming faster with each breath he takes. “Are you asking how many times I jerked off to daydreams of your cock, Shizu-chan? Whatever else you may be I never pegged you for a narcissist.”

Shizuo chokes over his protest . “ _What_? That’s not why...that’s not what I’m asking.”

“No?” Izaya angles his head to the side to add force to the skepticism in his expression. “What _are_ you asking, then, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “I want to know what you fantasized about me doing so I can _do_ it,” he says. He takes a breath and lets it go; Izaya can hear it shudder as Shizuo sets it free before the other goes on in a softer tone than before. “What do you like, Izaya?”

Izaya closes his mouth on the sharp-edged retort instinct wants to offer. There’s something soft in Shizuo’s voice, an uncertain tenderness that Izaya can feel ache at the inside of his chest as if Shizuo’s words have reached right through the barrier of his ribs to close a gentle fist around the rhythm of his heartbeat. He doesn’t have it in him to startle that away so easily, whatever his instinct may urge him to; while he’s staring at the top of Shizuo’s head the other shifts to turn down, until his forehead is pressing to Izaya’s collarbone and his breath is spilling against the other’s chest.

“I don’t know what you like,” Shizuo says against Izaya’s skin, speaking in that same strange, soft tone. “You seem happy enough with whatever I decide to try, and I think you’re enjoying yourself as much as I do, at least.”

“Yes,” Izaya manages. “Were the orgasms not sufficient evidence for that?”

“That’s not what I mean.” Shizuo shakes his head as he lifts up from Izaya’s shoulder to turn the whole focus of his gaze on the other’s face. There’s a weight behind his eyes, an attention that even Izaya’s deliberate flippancy can’t shove aside so easily. His teasing dies on his lips, his voice stripped away as Shizuo looks up at him with that intent focus he gets, sometimes, as if Izaya’s the only thing in the world, as if there’s nothing he could possibly be more interested in than the details of the people right in front of him right now.

“You’ve been in love with me for years,” Shizuo says. Izaya can feel his face heat with this reminder of the confession Shizuo worked free of his body with the demands of speech and touch and want, but he doesn’t have the space to deny it so he doesn’t try. “I think I’ve been in love with you for a lot of that too, but I didn’t _know_ I was. It’s not like I was thinking about it when I was jerking off, at least.”

Izaya grimaces. “Thanks.”

Shizuo huffs and shakes his head again. “That’s not...I mean.” He makes a face before visibly steadying himself back into calm. “You spent a lot of time thinking about me, right?” His mouth is set, his gaze is steady; Izaya can’t even find the focus in him to turn his head aside to so much as duck away from the warmth in that fixed stare. “I want to know what you thought about.” His hand slides down Izaya’s body, slowly enough to carry more affection than impatience. “What you imagined me doing to you.”

There’s no point in pretending to disinterest, with his skin flushing with visible color and Shizuo’s fingers trailing against his chest as they move towards Izaya’s hips, but Izaya still swallows to pull as much flippancy into his tone as he can manage before he answers. “Are you offering to act out my fantasies for me, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo doesn’t laugh. “Yeah. I guess so.” He shifts against the bed to rock himself a little higher and press close against Izaya next to him; Izaya turns his head to follow him without conscious thought, iron trailing a magnet. “What kind of things did you think about?”

“Sex,” Izaya says, as flatly as he can manage. “I trust you’re familiar with the premise?”

Shizuo scoffs in the back of his throat and rolls his eyes. “It’s not the premise I’m interested in.”

“I had a lot of time to work out my ideas,” Izaya says, and turns his head aside to break away from the focus of Shizuo’s eyes on him. “I don’t think even you can act out multiple fantasies at once.”

“Just one, then.” Shizuo’s mouth presses against Izaya’s shoulder with careful weight; it takes Izaya conscious effort to keep from shuddering physically with the heat that spills into him from the contact. “Any one, I don’t care.”

Izaya presses his lips together. His shoulders are tight on adrenaline, want and embarrassment straining for the upper hand at his lips; he can’t force words free, can’t even think of the casual ease for the tone he’d like to take on. “I thought about…” His throat clenches, his words break off as his face burns into heat. He turns his head farther to the side and shakes a rough rejection. “I can’t.”

“Are you really embarrassed?” The bed shifts as Shizuo pushes up onto an elbow to look down at Izaya before him. Izaya sets his mouth and keeps looking determinedly aside. “Just the other day you were talking about going down on me in a _café_ , and now you get shy?”

“It’s different with you looking at me,” Izaya manages.

“I told you mine,” Shizuo reminds him. “Do you think I’m going to laugh or something? I just want to know what you wanted me to do.” He falls silent but Izaya can still feel the focus of the other’s gaze on him, even if he’s not lifting his head to meet Shizuo’s eyes. He tightens his jaw and presses his lips tight together, not sure if it’s the words or the want he’s trying to hold back from spilling from his throat.

There’s a long pause, neither of them speaking or moving at all. Then Shizuo heaves a sigh, and he’s moving before Izaya can experience the sound as any sort of relief, sliding sideways and away off the bed as quickly as Izaya turns his head to look after him.

“Shizu-chan?” Izaya blurts, the strain in his throat easing enough to let at least that one panicked note free as Shizuo gets to his feet and turns away. Izaya pushes up from the bed in a rush, hardly noticing the blanket falling away to puddle around his hips. “Wait, Shizuo.”

“Stay there,” Shizuo says without looking back. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He’s not turning around to look to Izaya gazing after him but there’s no real irritation on his voice that Izaya can hear, either, nothing to indicate that he’s going to pull his clothes on and walk out of Izaya’s life as suddenly as he came into it. Besides, his clothes are on the far side of the bed, near to the bathroom door, and Shizuo is reaching for the drawer in the dresser at the corner, as if he means to go through Izaya’s wardrobe instead of his own. Izaya can’t make any sense of what the other’s doing, even in the heaviest weight of his own panic; he falls silent instead, staring confusion at Shizuo’s bare shoulders as the other digs through Izaya’s topmost dresser drawer with a frown of concentration as he goes. Finally Shizuo straightens, pulling free a strip of dark fabric from the drawer. Izaya thinks it’s an undone uniform tie, from one of the schoolgirl shirts he has as one of his occasional disguises or maybe even one of the never-used accessories from his Raijin days. Shizuo lifts it in front of him, drawing it out to its fullest extension between his hands before he ducks his head into a nod of satisfaction.

“This’ll work” and he’s coming back at once, turning to return to the bed as rapidly as he came. Izaya has no chance to pretend to be doing anything other than staring confusion at the other before Shizuo is dropping to a knee at the edge of the bed and leaning in towards him with the fabric still between his hands. It takes Izaya longer than it should to make sense of the other’s intent; it’s only as Shizuo is lifting the blindfold up to lay over his wide-open eyes that he realizes the purpose and lets his lashes fall shut on instinct.

“Maybe it’ll help to have your eyes covered.” Shizuo’s voice seems lower without the sight of his face to grant it specificity; Izaya can feel it down the whole length of his spine, arching at his back and tensing his shoulders. Shizuo’s touch ruffles his hair as he lays the blindfold into place over Izaya’s eyes and draws the ends back to tug into a knot at the back of the other’s head; he’s careful in the motion, gentle to keep from pulling too hard and tightening the band to pain. The blindfold cinches tight, the knot fixes securely against Izaya’s hair, and Shizuo’s touch falls back and away as Izaya feels the bed move with the other’s motion. “You could pretend that you’re alone, like this, if you wanted. Like I’m not even here.”

“That kind of defeats the point, doesn’t it?” But Izaya’s heart isn’t in the protest and he doesn’t try to force an edge onto the relatively gentle words. It’s strange to have his eyes covered, to have something as essential as his vision so neatly cut off; it makes him feel almost dizzy, like he’s lost his orientation in the world along with his ability to see his surroundings. But there’s a relief too, as if he’s been pulled aside from the rest of the world, like the blindfold is buffering him from the texture of reality around him to set him aside into a space of his own making, an empire under his own rule. Izaya lifts a hand to stretch out into the darkness, reaching for the contact of Shizuo still sitting at the edge of the bed; even expecting it, it’s startling when his fingers touch the warmth of the other’s arm to serve as proof of someone else’s presence. Izaya runs his fingers along the line of Shizuo’s shoulderblade, feeling out the easy comfort of the other’s position at the edge of the bed until his touch finds the weight of blond hair falling against the back of Shizuo’s neck; then he drops his hand, giving up his exploration before he can confirm that Shizuo is still watching him with that focus in his eyes.

“I’ll stay still, if you want.” Shizuo’s voice seems to hum in the air, as if it has a physical presence all its own; Izaya can feel it shimmering across his skin to push his balance even farther aside, like it’s recalibrating his sense of the world just for the hearing. “I won’t touch you unless you want me to. You could just jerk off and never know I’m here at all.”

Izaya heaves a sigh. “I suppose we can try it.” He lifts his hand from the bed to gesture out into the open space at his side, where his memory says the bedside table is even if his current situation is unsure of the presence of anything at all not directly touching his skin. “Hand me the lube.” The bed shifts as Shizuo leans forward to draw the drawer open and retrieve the bottle Izaya demands; Izaya closes his hand around the bottle Shizuo presses against his hold before lifting his other hand to shove hard against Shizuo’s shoulder. “Get up so I can’t feel you on the bed.” Shizuo gets to his feet obediently and Izaya lets his touch go to point in the general direction of the door. “Stand over there and be quiet.” He stays where he is, sitting up in bed while he listens to the soft sound of Shizuo’s footsteps against the bedroom floor; it’s only once the rhythm has gone still that Izaya takes a breath and lets his arm fall to his side. The room is very quiet; with Shizuo at the door it’s almost impossible to hear his breathing, even if Izaya listens for it, and the rhythm is easy to dismiss as a figment of the imagination now surging to life beneath the weight of the blindfold masking Izaya’s vision. Izaya takes a breath, holds it against the awareness of Shizuo here, in the room, gazing at him still sitting up on the bed; and then he lets them go, the thought and the breath at once, and lets his world narrow down to the span of the bed around him and the reach of what his blind touch can lay hand to.

The blankets come off first. Izaya pushes those aside without hesitation, letting them go free to bunch at the foot of the bed or slide sideways to the floor; it’s not important to him at the moment, so long as he has his legs free. He strips off the briefs he wore to sleep with as much speed; it’s hard to find self-consciousness when he can’t see his surroundings, and he’s never had need for embarrassment within the privacy of his bedroom and the secret fantasies that have unravelled themselves to fill the space. Izaya throws himself back onto the bed behind him as soon as he’s stripped, tilting his knees open with a sigh of relief as he lets his head drop back against the weight of the pillows behind him, and he stretches one arm out to the side to touch against the reassuring promise of the bottle of lube while he reaches down with the other to touch his fingertips to hot skin and draw friction up against the resistance of his length before he takes a breath and opens his mouth to speak.

“I’m usually hard by the time I’m on the bed.” He’s speaking to the darkness around him, for the sound of his voice in his ears, for the feel of the words vibrating in his chest; what audience he may have is far from his thoughts, no more than a shiver of adrenaline too distant to properly see. “Maybe I’ve just gotten back from Ikebukuro, or I’m waking up and still half-hard.” He bares his teeth into the flash of a grin. “Maybe I’m just horny.” He slides his hand down to palm against his balls with casual grace before drawing up to tighten his grip around the base of his cock.

“Regardless, I don’t really need to work myself up.” His fingers flex, his wrist works; Izaya lets his breath spill from his lips in a huff of relief as his grip strokes up against the heat of his length to purr pleasure out into his veins and against his spine. He lets his knee fall wider on the bed, draws his leg up until he can feel the flex of strain against the inside of his thigh. “This is just to pass the time while I decide what I want to think about.” His mind flickers over fantasies, complex and straightforward and realistic and irrational, measuring them against the ache in his balls and the flutter in his stomach and the strain at the back of his skull, before he finds one to fit and settles into it with a feeling like heaving a sigh as he sinks into a hot bath.

“Ah,” he breathes. “That one.” He strokes up over himself once more, drawing the motion long and lingering enough to arc his hips up off the bed by an inch as his body trails the pressure of his grip; and then he drops back to the mattress, groaning soft in the back of his throat as he draws his hand free and lifts the waiting bottle from his side.

“I have to prep myself first,” he says, offering a needless explanation for the sound of it more than anything else as he pours liquid over his fingers and slicks them against each other. “It’s an easier angle to start from like this.” He draws his knee higher up on the bed and braces his heel against the sheets to match the hand he drops behind him to hold himself up as he reaches down to press slick fingers between his legs. The lube is cool against him, carrying enough chill that he tenses reflexively against the contact at his entrance, but it warms as fast as he presses to draw out the friction into dragging pressure over the sensitive skin.

“I’m not sure if I locked the front door,” Izaya confesses, speaking clearly as he rubs against himself to offer the implication of force without quite moving to act on it yet. “I forget, sometimes, when I don’t do it right when I come in, or if I’m in a hurry to get upstairs.” He already has one knee angled up at the bed; now he slides his other foot across the sheets to spread his legs wider open and make a picture of himself as the movement of his wet fingers drags slow and stroking with anticipation. “When I’m getting back from a chase with Shizu-chan it’s lucky if I get the door shut behind me at all before I leave my pants in the entryway and come upstairs. I’m already out of breath and overheated anyway, and this is always the easiest way to work off some--” and he pushes in with a finger, thrusting deep so his body tenses convulsively even with his own hand offering the motion. His voice breaks for a moment, his breath giving way to a groan as his head ducks forward and his thighs tense; there’s a gap of silence before Izaya can press his lips together and draw a breath through his nose to go on speaking as he pulls back to take another stroke up and in. “ _Tension_.”

The motion is easy after the first thrust. Izaya’s body knows this rhythm, and his arm is dragging alongside the heat of his cock with every deliberate drive of his touch into himself; he lets his breath go as he tilts himself back onto the bed, letting the brace of his elbow under him ease so he can fall flat over the sheets and tilt his head back against the pillows to strain his breathing while he works his finger as far into himself as he can reach.

“I like to think about Shizu-chan,” he says, his voice pulled taut by the angle of his head and the heat of sincerity as he strokes into himself. “The color of his hair in the sunlight, the way his teeth flash when he smiles.” Izaya’s drawn-up thigh flexes; he tips it in towards his arm to brace himself, pausing for a moment to press another finger alongside the first still stroking inside him. His body gives way immediately to this, with as much ready surrender as if it’s openly begging for the pressure, and Izaya lets the tension in his chest go with a gusting exhale as he resumes the pace of his stroking again. “I can see his shoulders flex, sometimes, when he’s tearing free a street sign or picking up a motorcycle. He could pick me up one-handed and not even notice, I think.” Izaya’s cock is going slick at the head, smearing wet against the inside line of his arm as he works into himself, but he doesn’t reach to close his free hand around his length; he reaches out to fumble for the sheets next to him instead, to clutch and brace against their minimal support as he speeds the stroke of his fingers.

“Sometimes I think about him jerking off,” Izaya says to the darkness of his covered eyes, to the silent world he can’t even trust to exist without his vision to give it shape. “In the shower back in his apartment, maybe, with his eyes shut and his forehead creased and his cock in his grip. I wonder what he would do if he caught me like this, if he knew I think about him with two fingers inside myself and my hand on my cock. I think about the door, downstairs, if I locked it or not, if I would hear it come open from up here. Would I realize if he followed me across the city, if he came down the hall to my apartment?”

Izaya takes a deep breath. It strains in his chest, pressing tight against an ache between tears and anticipation; he has to hold it for a moment before he can trust himself to let it go as something other than a moan or a sob.

“This is when I start thinking I’m hearing things,” he confesses to the darkness over his eyes. “The squeak of the front door, or footsteps on the stairs.” He lets his knee fall to the side and twists to roll over, to pivot himself over his hip and fall onto his stomach, with his hand still pressing between his legs so he can stroke into the give of his body with unflinching force. The movement pulls against the resistance; Izaya can feel his body tighten with the surge of unexpected friction, until it’s hard to catch his breath back to go on speaking.

“I can’t hear as well with my head down like this,” he says, turning his head to the side so his words will still carry past the barrier of the sheets beneath him. “I can get a better angle on myself, too.” He slides his knees apart to just wider than his hips and angles himself up against their support to lift his hips free of the bed beneath him and make a slant of the curve of his back; there’s a sound like an inhale, sucked in sharply from the distance of the door, but it’s lost to the drag of skin over sheets, and Izaya ignores it outright.

“It’s better like this,” Izaya says, bracing his elbow against the sheets to steady himself as he speeds the movement of his fingers. “I can get a little deeper, and sound is muffled, so maybe I don’t hear the door opening behind me.” His skin is flushing hot over the whole of his body, he can feel the color of it, but there’s no space for embarrassment with his eyes covered to hide the world from his vision; it’s hard to believe there’s anything there at all except for the motion of his own body stroking him to greater heights of rising pleasure as he gasps for air against the bed beneath him.

“I can’t see with my face pressed down against the sheets,” Izaya offers to the darkness. “I’m breathing hard enough that I don’t hear the sound of clothes coming free behind me or dropping to the floor.” He gasps a breath; there’s pressure building in his stomach, tension rising deep in his abdomen with every stroke he takes with his fingers, but he holds it off, shoving it back and away even as his cock strains towards his stomach. “I don’t hear him coming up to the edge of the bed. I don’t realize he’s standing there watching me fuck myself.” There’s a shift against the blankets, the tiniest tug against the sheets under Izaya’s knees; Izaya’s heart skips, his breathing catches before he can force himself through another inhale and go on.

“It happens all at once,” Izaya says. “There’s a hand at my wrist and then a pull to slide my fingers free. I don’t even have time to shout before there are knees against mine and a grip at my hip and a cock thrusting into me.” The bed shifts, a grip closes at Izaya’s wrist; Izaya’s gusting a breath hot on anticipation even before the force comes, the fingers at his hip and the thick heat of a cockhead bearing down against him. His lungs are empty, his throat soundless; all he can do is shudder voicelessly as the force penetrates him, driving deep on that first thrust in time with the gusting exhale of the man who has materialized from the darkness that is Izaya’s world at the moment. For a span Izaya’s held where he is, speech stripped from him with the force of that sudden, shocking pressure; then he feels the strain, the self-control thrumming through that still body curving forward over his own, and he struggles into a breath formed of need more than ability so he can force more words past his lips.

“He doesn’t say anything,” Izaya rasps against the bed. “I can’t see his face, I can’t hear his voice. He just grabs at the back of my neck to hold me down to the bed and starts to fuck me into the sheets.” The grip at Izaya’s wrist gives way, fingers slide in to settle against the top of his spine, and Izaya lets his hand drop to clutch against the sheets and steady himself against the forward thrust of the hips behind him. The pressure surges up his spine with the motion, as the length within him urges deep into the give of his body, but when Izaya’s breath spills from his chest it falls into the heat of a moan, as hot and helpless as his current position, pinned down against the sheets of his bed by an unbreakable hold at his neck and with nothing to orient him in reality but the input surging in from his overwhelmed body.

“He doesn’t stop,” Izaya gasps, carried forward on the tide of his words even with his thoughts giving way with each forward motion of the body behind him spreading his knees wider against the bed and bearing him down towards the sheets. “He doesn’t... _ah_...doesn’t reach to jerk me off, doesn’t touch my cock at all.” He presses his lips together to hiss a breath through his nose; it feels like fire against the inside of his chest, hot enough to char the edges of his words to smoke before he rasps them into voice at his tongue.

“It doesn’t matter though,” Izaya struggles, forcing the words past his lips as his thoughts haze, as his body angles forward into surrender to the force behind him. “I’m...I’m going hotter anyway just from…him moving in me.” His wrist strains at the sheets, his arm flexes to urge against the resistance at the back of his neck, but there’s not so much as a shift in the hold locking him in place any more than there’s a break in the rhythm of those hips moving over him, of that cock working inside him. “I can hear him breathing harder, I know that breathing but I can’t be sure, I can’t…” and Izaya’s shoulders flex against a surge of heat that hits him, rushing so far along his spine he thinks for a moment he’s going to come right there, with the last of his fantasy yet unvoiced in the air. His cock jerks towards his stomach, straining as if to break free of his self-control, as if to give expression to the need rising in him in answer to the friction driving into the surrender of his body; and then the fingers at his neck flex, thumb and forefinger bearing down against the strain at his spine, and Izaya gasps and spills words as if they’ve been forced from him by that grip.

“It’s too much,” he chokes off. “I’m...I’m going to come, whoever he is, I can feel it, even without touching myself I…” He gasps an inhale, feeling it come strangled on the heat in his throat, and goes on, speaking fast. “He’s moving faster, he’s breathing harder, his fingers are tight against my neck and he’s going hotter in me, I don’t know which of us is going to come first, and then he...he thrusts into me, and he says my name, and I _know_.” There’s an exhale from over him, a sound like air forced free by the weight of a punch, and a hand closes against Izaya’s hip, fingers digging in tight to brace him still against the forward thrust of the body behind him. Heat drives into him, penetrating deep into the strain of his body, and into the ringing darkness of Izaya’s covered eyes:

“ _Izaya-kun_ ” Shizuo groans, and Izaya’s body goes taut as if electrified, as if the simple sound of Shizuo’s voice on his name is enough all alone to wrench his orgasm free of his straining body. His hips jerk against that unbreakable hold, his spine arches on strain, and Izaya chokes on a breath as his whole body flares to incandesence.

“Shizu-chan,” he says. “I’m coming” and he is, he’s spending himself over the sheets as his body tightens through waves of pleasure breaking over him in time with Shizuo coming into him. Izaya’s shoulders are shaking, his breathing is cracking into whimpered, incoherent pleas, his whole body is flexing on instinctive strain impossibly beyond his control, and through it all Shizuo’s hold stays where it is, locked at his neck and hip to steady Izaya against the dizzying rush of their joined pleasure, to keep that point of contact fixed even as Izaya’s gravity, awareness, breath give way to the force of the relief Shizuo has urged into his body.

Shizuo doesn’t pull away, after. Izaya is glad he doesn’t have to go on with his directions; he isn’t sure he could form his shaken voice to speech at all, at the moment, much less attain any kind of coherency from the wreck that the heat of his orgasm has left him. He doesn’t realize right away what Shizuo is doing, when the hand at his neck slides up to weight into his hair instead; it’s only as the band of the blindfold slides up and away that Izaya makes sense of the gesture, and even then it’s the flicker of light painful against his dark-adjusted eyes that presses his lids shut instead of any more conscious decision. He turns his head down against the pillow to block out the ache of illumination as Shizuo tugs the blindfold free and tosses it aside. There’s a weight at Izaya’s hair, the press of fingers dipping in and against the strands to smooth them back into order after the disarray of the blindfold, and Izaya can feel his shoulders easing into languid weight on instinct more than deliberate intent as Shizuo’s touch winds down the back of his neck with careful attention.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. Izaya isn’t sure if the other is actually speaking in a lower range or if it’s the lingering effects of his own orgasm still ringing in his ears that grant his name such weight at the other’s lips. He suspects the truth falls somewhere between the two. “Are you alright?”

Izaya thinks he would be happy to lie exactly as he is for long minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a day, just letting the weight of pleasure soak into the strain in his body and leave him bonelessly warm over the bed. But Shizuo’s words are weighted with attention, and Izaya doesn’t want to wait and let them take on the edge of true concern in the absence of a proper reply, so he musters all the strength he can find in himself to succeed in turning his head fractionally against the pillows to offer his profile to the light, even if he keeps his eyes shut against the glow for now.

“I am undone,” he says to the haze of illumination pressing to his eyelids. “Taken. Ravished.” He does risk opening an eye then, just so he can cast his gaze back over his shoulder at Shizuo leaning over him. “You really are a monster, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo doesn’t even growl irritation. He just snorts, coupling the sound with a grin that Izaya can see by the flash of light off the other’s teeth. “You liked it.”

“Of course I liked it,” Izaya says. “I just lived out one of my favorite fantasies.” He flexes his shoulders into the outline of strength and presses his knees hard against the bed; pulling forward to free himself from Shizuo’s softening cock takes more willpower than strength, but the lure of collapsing outright to the bed is enough to manage it, even if he groans as he falls forward to the sheets. He lies against the blankets for a moment, appreciating the warm weight suffusing all his body for the span of several heartbeats, before he twists onto his side and opens his eyes to look up at Shizuo still leaning over him.

“Of course it’s all over now,” he says with calm certainty. “I’ll never be able to jerk off to the idea of being taken by a self-assured stranger again, now I know what the reality is like.”

Shizuo huffs another laugh. “Guess not.”

“You don’t sound very sorry, Shizu-chan.”

“Yeah.” Shizuo tips forward to collapse heavily to the bed next to Izaya and Izaya shifts at once to face him. Shizuo’s hand comes out to offer proprietary pressure against Izaya’s hip; Shizuo’s gaze follows the fit of his fingers before he looks up to smile at Izaya directly. “I’ll help you out anytime you’re missing the experience.”

“You don’t know what you’re offering,” Izaya tells him. “That was one of my favorites, after all.”

Shizuo hums and leans in closer. “Uh huh.”

“You’ll never make it back to Ikebukuro.” Izaya lifts his hand to weight at Shizuo’s shoulder as Shizuo slides in closer to fit them together and press his lips to Izaya’s shoulder. “Might as well not even put your clothes on.”

“Or leave the bed?” Shizuo suggests against Izaya’s collarbone.

“Absolutely,” Izaya says, and tips his head to the side so Shizuo can kiss against the curve of his throat. “You’re signing your life away to this, Shizu-chan.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says without the least indication of alarm in his tone. “Guess we’ll just have to come up with some new things for you to fantasize about.”

Izaya laughs without turning his head. “I guess you do have some good ideas after all, Shizu-chan.” And he turns his head towards the light, and he lets Shizuo kiss him down into the bed.


	9. Subject

Izaya isn’t ready for this.

He knows he’s being ridiculous. He and Shizuo have known each other for nearly a decade, have been a constant if not pleasant part of each other’s lives for the entirety of that, thanks to his own dedicated efforts, and if that wasn’t enough to prove intimacy they have spent the last weeks exploring nearly every application of the word, from entangled fingers in the disguising weight of shadows and the distraction of a crowd to the slow press of half-asleep kisses to every possible application of physical pleasure Izaya has been able to invent or retrieve from the recesses of his imagination. They’ve shared meals, showers, a bed, fantasies; the real oddity, Izaya suspects, would be that through all of this he still hasn’t officially crossed the boundary into Shizuo’s apartment. It would seem an oversight, a quirk of no great significance to anyone else; and yet when Shizuo opens the door to usher him inside, it takes the full strength of the other’s pull at Izaya’s hand to get him to take the necessary step across the threshold.

“Here we are,” Shizuo says, lifting his free arm to gesture around the inside of the apartment. He’s toeing his shoes off without any of the hesitation or awkwardness that Izaya has glimpsed at his own apartment or even at Shinra and Celty’s; it speaks to his self-possession here, in this space more foreign to Izaya than any of the darkest corners of Ikebukuro, that he moves with such thoughtless ease to let Izaya’s hand go as he pushes the door shut and turns over the deadbolt. “Home, for me at least.” He drops his keys against the table alongside the door and steps around Izaya, still standing as if frozen in the entryway where Shizuo’s touch urged him; his sleeve brushes the other’s wrist, his open cuff cutting near enough to skim the strip of bare skin between Izaya’s own sleeve and his hand hanging slack at his side. “I’m going to get a glass of water, I’ll be right back.” Shizuo glances back over his shoulder as he moves towards the corner of the apartment, where what Izaya assumes to be the kitchen is demarcated by an open doorway and tile laid into the floor. “Want something?”

Izaya shakes his head. He’s glad Shizuo is looking back at him to see the gesture; it saves him from trying to force words past the pressure in his throat that’s so high he thinks he might choke even over the thin of his breathing. Shizuo turns away again to continue on to the kitchen in pursuit of his stated goal, and Izaya is left to stand where he is, adrift on the island of the entryway while the weight of Shizuo’s life bears down on him from every side. He can’t move for a moment, for how many things there are to look at, for how many details there are to take in: for how much of an intruder he feels, as if Shizuo’s home remembers what he was not a month past in a way the man himself has entirely disregarded with the advent of new information. Izaya wants to look at everything, wants to touch his fingers to every surface in the house, to leave his fingerprints at every corner and spill his breath into every room; and he can’t make himself move to so much as step off the square of smooth wood underfoot.

It’s the thought of the floor that makes him think of his shoes. He’s still wearing them, the weight of them against his feet enough to give away his own discomfort in the situation; the thought is enough to overcome his stress with self-consciousness and urge him into action, at least enough to step back and out of the shoes so he can push them carefully to the very edge of the entryway with his toes. The action doesn’t improve his sense of security in the moment -- in actual fact the loss makes him feel the more vulnerable, as if he might be left barefoot for the sprint through the city his years-old instincts are telling him will shortly be required -- but it gives him something to do for a moment, so he’s looking down instead of up when Shizuo returns with a metal cup in one hand.

“I can show you around if you want,” he says as he brings the cup to his lips to swallow a long mouthful from it. He looks absolutely calm, from the slouch of his shoulders to the pace of his steps as he comes forward without even pausing to finish swallowing so he can watch where he’s going; his comfort in the surroundings is as clear from the grace with which he moves through them as in the easy ownership in his actions as he steps around the indentation of the entryway just before the door. “It’s only a few rooms, nothing like as impressive as your place, but at least I can orient you.” He finishes the water in his cup and emerges grinning at Izaya, his head ducked forward so the weight of his hair falls to shadow over his face. “Unless you’ve broken in before as part of your obsessive stalking and already know everything about it.”

He’s teasing. The lilt of his voice makes his amusement clear, without any reasonable possibility of misinterpreting it as actual anger; he’s setting Izaya up to flash a smirk, and tilt his head, and offer something flippant and suggestive, as if he has already made himself as familiar in Shizuo’s home as if it’s merely an extension of his own. Izaya can see the whole structure of the dialogue, can almost taste the words he’s expected to offer at the back of his tongue; but his throat is closed off, his heart is pounding, and all he can manage to offer in response to Shizuo’s teasing is a short headshake and a desperate swallow to try to clear some of the pressure from his throat. “No.”

Shizuo’s grin fades at once, melting away from his expression as immediately as the tension of amusement in his eyes gives way to concern. He reaches out without looking to set the cup down against the table, alongside the keys he cast onto the surface, and when he comes forward it’s to stand at the edge of the entryway, his shoulders tilting forward like he’s looking to cage Izaya where he stands, or maybe like he’s trying to offer protection from the too-much reality of the moment.

“Izaya.” The teasing is gone from his tone, stripped to sincerity like it was never there at all. When he lifts his hands it’s to touch his fingertips against the corners of Izaya’s elbows, where the other is holding his grip tight around himself as if to keep the fragmentary pieces he knows as himself from outright collapse. “What’s wrong?”

Izaya shakes his head but doesn’t look up. He can hardly stand to even be in this space of Shizuo’s home, to have the details of the other’s life laid out so clearly around him; he certainly can’t look up to meet the all-in force of Shizuo’s eyes fixed on him. Shizuo’s hands draw up higher, smoothing against the fabric of his sleeves over his arms with a clumsy attempt at physical comfort. The press of fingers strong enough to crush steel in a careless grip shouldn’t be able to carry as much reassurance as they do.

“Do you not like it?” Shizuo attempts. “It’s not as nice as your place. We can go back to Shinjuku if you want to.”

Izaya lets his hold on his arm go to grab at Shizuo’s wrist with force enough to prove the sincerity of his headshake as he gives it. “No,” he manages, even if his voice comes out raw and desperate. “I want to stay.”

“Okay.” Shizuo hesitates for a moment, his grip still stalled by the weight of Izaya’s touch against his wrist, before he takes a breath. “Do you want to see the rest of the apartment?”

Izaya shakes his head again. There’s curiosity in him, to be sure, a desire to pick apart the details of Shizuo’s life, to unravel the structure of the other’s existence like he’s breaking apart a puzzle before fitting the pieces back together with careful attention; but there’s no space for him here, there’s no room for him in this life that he’s never been able to lay hands to before, that all his taunting and baiting has never gained him access to. He’s barefoot in the entryway of Shizuo’s home, his welcome left hanging in the gap between his feet and the threshold of the apartment itself; and he takes a breath, and tightens his hand on Shizuo’s wrist to steady himself before he seeks words from the tension in his throat to offer against his tongue.

“I want to go to the bedroom.” His voice is too soft, he sounds almost uncertain; Izaya flexes his fingers to dig in bruise-hard against Shizuo’s arm, to mark the shape of his nails in against the other’s skin. “Please, Shizu-chan.”

“Sure.” Shizuo still sounds more confused than anything else, enough that Izaya can hear the shape of the frown at the other’s lips on the words, but there’s something lower under his voice, now, responding to the implication of Izaya’s words if nothing else. Izaya can hear the sound of Shizuo’s throat moving when he swallows. “Just to see it, or…?”

Izaya shakes his head again. “No,” he says, and he lets his other hand go from its hold on his opposite arm so he can reach up instead, can catch his grip at the back of Shizuo’s neck and brace himself close against the shadow of the other’s presence while he spills words to the front of Shizuo’s dark vest, over the rhythm of the other’s heart beating calm and regular against the crisp of his shirt. “I want you to take me to your bedroom and spread me open across your sheets and fuck me until you can’t see the blankets without remembering the way I looked coming over them.”

Shizuo’s breath catches in his throat; Izaya can feel it against his hair as clearly as he can hear the sound of it at Shizuo’s lips. There’s a pause, a heartbeat of time where Izaya waits to see if Shizuo will ask for more, if he needs more clarity than the absolute certainty of the other’s request; and then Shizuo’s hand lifts from Izaya’s arm to catch at his back instead and pull him in against the other’s chest, and Izaya knows he’s understood before Shizuo’s taken a breath to speak.

“Alright,” he says, and Izaya is lifting his arms immediately to catch around Shizuo’s neck and brace himself against the support the other offers as rapidly as Shizuo’s fingers can slide against the line of his thigh and lift him up and off the ground. Izaya’s legs catch around Shizuo’s waist, he wraps his hands around his opposite elbows to brace his hold around Shizuo’s neck, and Shizuo settles his hold on Izaya with graceful ease, one arm crossing over the other’s back and the other hand bracing under his hips to steady his weight as he turns to stride through the space of the apartment that is home to him and undiscovered territory for Izaya. Izaya keeps his head pressed close to Shizuo’s neck, breathing against the familiar rhythm of the other’s heartbeat rather than trying to catch a glimpse of their surroundings, and Shizuo doesn’t ease any part of his hold on the other. He carries Izaya straight through his apartment, following what Izaya suspects to be the most efficient path from the doorway to the bedroom, and when he steps through the doorway he doesn’t need instruction from Izaya to push the door shut behind him with one foot. The latch clicks into place to seal them away from the presence of the rest of the apartment but Izaya doesn’t have time to even breathe a sigh of relief; Shizuo is carrying him forward instead, crossing the distance of his bedroom in a pair of long strides before dropping at once to kneel as he tips forward to lower Izaya to the soft of what is clearly a bed, even before Izaya opens his eyes to take in the structure of his surroundings.

The room is small, just the mattress and bedframe in the corner and a few scattered pieces of furniture to differentiate the space from the living area attached to the main entryway, but Izaya doesn’t have long to consider these details of Shizuo’s life before the man himself is laying claim to his full attention by means of catching his hands against the open edges of the other’s coat. He doesn’t speak at all, to offer explanation or ask for permission; he just pushes at once to strip the other’s clothing off with a speed Izaya suspects would achieve his goal just as well with or without Izaya’s ready surrender. Izaya gives it all the same, pushing up off the bed to let Shizuo urge his coat free of his shoulders and off his body; his shirt follows in rapid succession as Shizuo moves to peel it up off his chest almost before the coat has slid off the bed to land in a heap at the floor. Izaya falls backwards to the bed as soon as Shizuo has his shirt and coat off, his breath coming faster at this display of such unhesitating self-confidence, but Shizuo doesn’t even hesitate to glance at the flush on his cheeks or to notice the speed of the breathing Izaya knows is coming with visible speed in his chest. He’s working at his own clothes, shrugging out of his vest and stripping his tie free of his collar with the same movement; he makes short work of the buttons of his shirt, too, slipping them free one after the other until he can free himself of the open cuffs and loose collar. His undershirt comes up over his head in a single motion graceful enough to dry Izaya’s mouth with appreciation of the flex of muscle under tanned skin against Shizuo’s waist and chest and shoulders; he’s still staring wide-eyed when Shizuo drops the shirt to the floor along with everything else and reaches for his belt.

The leather slides free of the buckle with the same elegant speed Shizuo has shown in shedding the rest of his clothing, and he has no more hesitation over his slacks and underwear than he did over his shirt and vest; they spill off his hips like water, urged off his body by their own weight as soon as his button and fly are open, and then he’s turning to kick them free and leave himself bare of anything at all as he comes back in to lean over Izaya. His cock is filling, if still working its way to full hardness; Izaya’s attention catches at the swelling weight of it, still giving way to the force of gravity for now but fast heating as Shizuo unfastens Izaya’s pants with the same focused efficiency he brought to bear on his own. Izaya would like to claim it’s Shizuo’s self-assurance that has his own cock so swollen with heat even before the other has tugged the elastic of his briefs away from the strain of it, but he’s sure Shizuo could feel how desperate he was even in the few strides it took to bring them here, and besides the other is no more hesitating for explanations than he is for nonexistent uncertainty. He’s just acting, easy in his own confidence as he strips Izaya as bare as he is, until he’s left their clothes in a tangle on the floor beside the bed and there’s nothing between their bodies but resistanceless air.

Shizuo doesn’t linger over the picture he’s made of Izaya. Izaya’s grateful to that: there are times when he appreciates the way Shizuo looks at him like he’s been struck breathless, like he can hardly believe the sight of Izaya spread out before him for his own appreciation. But Izaya’s heart is still racing with speed enough to leave him shaky and uncertain in his own skin, as if the unfamiliar surroundings of Shizuo’s bedroom around him are enough to knock him free of even the stability of his own existence, and right now he wants nothing so much as the immediacy of sensation, of physical contact overwhelming enough to force aside the stress curving itself along his spine and straining over his shoulders, until the choice of whether to fall into the surrender of release is taken from him outright. So he’s grateful, this time, that Shizuo is leaning to the side as soon as he’s stripped Izaya’s pants free of his feet to reach under the shadows of the bed in search of the means to slick his fingers to easy motion. Izaya touches a hand to Shizuo’s shoulder -- contact more than a hold, just the weight of fingers skimming over the flex of strength in the other’s body as if to bleed some into his own trembling limbs -- and holds himself steady by that point as Shizuo retrieves the bottle from under his bed and pushes back up to where he’s kneeling between Izaya’s spread legs. Izaya is left to lie across Shizuo’s bed for a moment, counting the beats of his frantic-fast heart and feeling his fingertips trembling on mingled anticipation and apprehension while Shizuo pours wet over his fingers and presses the lid of the bottle shut again. The bottle drops over the edge of the bed, Shizuo slides his knees wider apart to brace himself steady between Izaya’s legs, and when he reaches down it’s to stroke his touch up and against Izaya’s entrance with the certainty of absolute confidence.

Izaya tenses at the friction. He can’t help it, the motion is too much a reflex, too much of instinct in him as it strains at his thighs and jolts through his hips; but Shizuo doesn’t so much as blink surprise at the spasm of motion that runs through Izaya’s body before him. He just lifts his free hand to fit his palm in against the strain across Izaya’s stomach, to press and urge the other back down to the sheets, and when Izaya falls back with a gasp of surrender Shizuo rewards him with a long stroke up against his entrance, urging close against the other like he’s making a promise of his touch. Izaya can feel himself soften, can feel the tension in his body ease and give way to the tremor of anticipation instead, as Shizuo’s fingers draw up and the slick force of the other’s fingertips press against him like he’s gauging Izaya’s readiness; and then Shizuo pauses, hesitating with his fingers pressing to Izaya’s entrance and Izaya’s legs trembling with expectation around him.

“Izaya,” he says, his voice low and weighted dark on consideration, and then his throat works and he lifts his gaze up to meet the other’s. Shizuo’s eyes look nearly black in the shadow of his hair, as if the desire that is hardening his cock to stand out stiff from his hips is stripping him down to the bestial monster Izaya’s habitual mockery used to make of him, but his mouth is startlingly soft, so gentle Izaya can see the tremor of words fluttering against the curve of it even before Shizuo gives them voice. “Do you want two?”

It takes Izaya a moment to make sense of this. Even with Shizuo’s touch hovering just against him it’s too much of a leap for his thoughts to make, from the incoherent haze of tension building in him to the direct question at Shizuo’s lips. But then his heat-slowed mind catches up with the speeding force of his heartbeat, and when he groans the sound is so far in the depths of his stomach that he’s sure Shizuo can feel the force of it as well as he can hear it.

“ _Yes_ ,” Izaya gasps, desperation breaking his voice apart on the strain all against his legs and humming in his thoughts. “Please, Shizuo, I want--” and Shizuo’s arm flexes, Shizuo’s fingers press, and Izaya’s pleas melt into a moan loud enough to echo off the walls as his head goes back with the feel of Shizuo pushing into him. It’s a strain, the breadth so much Izaya can feel it thrumming at the very edge of pain, teetering against the cusp of too-much even before Shizuo’s first knuckle is inside him, but when reflex tightens Izaya against the force it’s heat that surges up his spine instead of pain, and when Shizuo pushes deeper Izaya can feel the desire for more like a hunger aching in the very core of his existence. Izaya is pleading, he thinks, his lips are forming over words and his legs are shaking and he can hear the echo of his own voice spilling from the walls around him like a wave retreating back from a beach, but if he’s begging it’s for more, and Shizuo is acting on his own volition, now. His hand at Izaya’s stomach is holding the other down, pressing hard to pin Izaya still against the sheets even as his legs spasm and his hands clutch for whatever handhold they can lay claim to, and when Shizuo’s fingers urge Izaya opens for the asking, his body unfolding for the first knuckle, the second, until he’s pulled the whole of Shizuo’s fingers into him, until he’s spending those involuntary tremors of heat against the resistance of Shizuo’s touch within and without his body. Shizuo stays there for a moment, letting Izaya adjust to the force or maybe just appreciating the sensation of Izaya’s body fluttering heat against the length of his fingers, and then he draws back with the slick sound of wet skin pulling against itself and thrusts back up and in.

Izaya doesn’t speak. There’s nothing to say, nothing he could want more than this: Shizuo’s fingers working into him, his body giving way to every stroke of the other’s touch, that fixed contact against his stomach as if to pin him to the bed by the very centerpoint of his existence. His legs aren’t tense anymore: they’re slack, angled wide open over the bed and drawn up as high as Izaya can bring them, with only brief flickers of tension rippling through them as Shizuo’s fingertips work deeper or as Shizuo’s knuckles drag over sensitive nerve endings. Izaya’s foot has slipped sideways off the bed, his toes are brushing the support of the floor beneath them, but he doesn’t try to brace himself against the resistance, doesn’t reach for any kind of additional structure. It’s enough to have Shizuo’s hand against him, to have the friction of Shizuo’s palm bracing him down to more reality than he’s ever managed alone, holding him steady for the overwhelming force of those paired fingers urging him wider with every thrust they take. He can turn his head against the sheets, can let his gaze wander out over the surroundings of Shizuo’s bedroom, over the proof of Shizuo’s life so near and intimate where he’s sprawling under the heat of the other’s touch, under the certain demand of Shizuo’s fingers, and Izaya can feel his chest go tight on some emotion sharper even than the sunbright pleasure swelling the promise of relief in him in slow-rising answer to Shizuo’s touch. He has to shut his eyes, has to block out the distraction of sight for a moment while he reclaims his breath, while he steadies himself against the reality of this moment; but still he lifts his hand to touch at the edge of the bed, to curl his fingers into a grip against the support of the bedframe and brace himself in place while Shizuo works him open.

It doesn’t take long. Shizuo is unflinching in his movement, acting with a rhythm and a force that speak of efficient self-assurance, and Izaya feels like he’s melting, as if all the submission he has always locked away at the back of his head is spilling down his spine to pour through his body, now, as if all his resistance before in word and heart and body has only been to bring him to this point, so when Shizuo asks it of him he can spill himself into the shape demanded of Shizuo’s life, of Shizuo’s home. Shizuo’s cock is flushed to full heat by the time he draws his fingers back and free of Izaya’s body, desire rising the weight of it in overt defiance of the pull of gravity; the grip he steadies around himself is almost idle, as if the slick of lube over the breadth of his shaft and the swell of the head is an afterthought more than anything else.

Izaya watches him, his lashes cast down over his eyes so he sees the movement through a haze suited to the rush of his heartbeat and the pulse of pleasure deep down in his hips, until when Shizuo lifts his gaze to Izaya’s face it’s a moment before Izaya can draw his attention up from the other’s cock. Even then he has no control over his expression; he feels as knocked loose of his carefully practiced restraint as he has been stripped of the instinctive tension of his body, until his expression forms as clear an invitation for Shizuo as the slack spread of his thighs. Shizuo’s lashes flutter as he looks down at Izaya, his gaze sliding down as if to map the lines of the other’s body over his bed, as if to lock down the sight of Izaya’s body spread out for his consideration, and he leans in as quickly, his shoulders tipping forward to angle him over the other’s body at the same time he shifts his knees down and wider on the bed to brace himself in place. His hand comes out to steady just alongside Izaya’s chest, his other comes in and under to catch and lift Izaya’s thigh; Izaya’s toes come up off the floor, drawn into unsupported air by the urging of slick fingers clutching at the inside of his knee. He arches up into it, curving to the demand of Shizuo’s hold as he lifts both arms to catch his fingers into the tangle of yellow hair, and when Shizuo’s gaze comes back up to meet Izaya’s it happens in time with the forward angle of his hips, as he brings himself forward against Izaya’s body without even looking at what he’s doing.

Izaya tenses involuntarily, reflex tightening him for a moment of fluttering strain as Shizuo’s cock presses against him, as heat demands entrance from the slick-stretched tension of his body; and then Shizuo’s forehead creases, and Shizuo’s lips part, and Izaya watches distracted pleasure break out and across the other’s expression as he thrusts forward to sink his cock into Izaya beneath him. Izaya’s legs flex, his toes curling as if to seek out some point of traction against the sheets or the frictionless air, but when his back arches it’s Shizuo’s grip on his thigh that he urges against, and when he clenches it’s to seize hard against the weight of Shizuo’s cock in him. Shizuo gusts a breath, and guides his hips forward, and as his body fits into place against Izaya’s Izaya’s lashes fall heavy to cast his vision to darkness for the first wave of satisfaction that always comes with Shizuo entering him. They’re still for a moment, their bodies pressed together as Izaya quivers, as Shizuo strains; and then Shizuo’s hips pull back, and Izaya’s hands curl to fists in the other’s hair, and Shizuo begins to fuck him in earnest.

There is no hesitation. Izaya has felt uncertainty in Shizuo before, in touches that are lighter than they need to be and movements that stop short of their full strength, as if Shizuo is afraid of hurting him, as if Izaya has ever wanted anything more than he wants to be the shore on which Shizuo’s strength breaks and crashes; but experience has granted him confidence, or maybe it’s the permission of Izaya’s request that is overriding that hesitance and bringing the full force of his presence to bear. Shizuo’s hold at Izaya’s leg is unbreakable, unflinching; even when Izaya arches up to give up the majority of his weight to that one point of contact Shizuo keeps moving without pausing, as if he hardly even notices the extra burden. His hand presses to the bed as if he intends to lock himself in place, as if he means to move not so much as an inch until he’s found his release within the grip of Izaya’s body, and his hips move with absolute force, stroking forward and pulling back in a rhythm so strict it pays no mind to the rasp of Izaya’s breathing or the tremor of tension flexing through his legs and pulling him taut around the movement of Shizuo thrusting into him.

Shizuo doesn’t give Izaya a chance to catch his breath, doesn’t wait for the other to volunteer permission beyond what he’s already surrendered. He just takes, certain and solid and overwhelming, moving with as much intensity as if he intends to mark the space as entirely with Izaya’s presence as Izaya wants him to, as if he means to dig the shape of Izaya’s body into his sheets and bed and bedroom past any possibility of working it free. Izaya is panting for air, gasping at the heat around him while his lungs work like they mean to draw all the oxygen from Shizuo’s bedroom into his chest to mark it with the heat of his body, and Shizuo’s hips keep working into him, rocking him back against the sheets fractionally with each forward stroke to sheathe Shizuo’s length within him. Izaya can feel himself sliding back in spite of the hold on his thigh, as the force of Shizuo’s movement wins out over even the other’s grip bracing them together. He lets one of his hands go to reach up instead, to fumble over his head until he can brace his palm at the wall and lock his elbow to hold himself steady, but then Shizuo drives into him again and Izaya’s focus gives way, his strength and breath at once dissolving into a moan he can feel resonate all the way down within his body where Shizuo is moving into him.

Shizuo pauses in his rhythm. It takes Izaya a moment to clear his vision and blink himself into focus; Shizuo is frowning, his forehead creased with consideration as he looks at Izaya arching up beneath him. In the stillness of the other’s movement Izaya can feel the flutter of strain in his body with vivid clarity, from the rattle of his heart in his chest to the quiver in his thighs to the thudding heat in his cock. His hair is damp at his skin, the back of his neck hot at the sheets; at his stomach his cock has spilled a few drops of liquid to bead and trickle over his navel. Shizuo is similarly warm, although heat has made him more radiant than anything else: the tan of his skin makes him seem to glow with the haze of damp against him, and the heat over his cheeks has stained his mouth as dark as his eyes, where his pupils are blown wide with the same desire he has been so assiduously stoking in Izaya. Izaya’s thighs flex, his upraised toes curl on a shiver that has nothing at all to do with cold, and then Shizuo gusts an exhale and eases his hold to lower Izaya to the sheets.

Izaya falls back to the soft of the mattress, losing his breath with the sudden shift in his position, and Shizuo is pulling out of him before he can find the air to protest this sudden and undesirable change. Izaya’s body aches with the loss, tensing around the sudden space left by Shizuo’s retreat, and while he’s still breathless with the change Shizuo rocks back onto his knees to take his weight off his bracing hand at the bed. His grip closes at Izaya’s hip, his arm flexes with casual strength, and Izaya’s entire body moves at once, borne forward into action without any possibility to offer so much as token resistance. Shizuo’s hands catch at his hips to ease the motion as he turns Izaya down over the sheets and pulls him around to lie face-down against the drag of the blankets before the force of his palms bears down to pin Izaya still where he lies against the mattress. It feels like iron, as if metal bands have caught to grip at the angle of Izaya’s pelvis and lock him fully in place, and as Shizuo rocks forward to press his weight down against Izaya and shift his knees wider across the bed Izaya can feel his breath stick in his throat, can feel his cock twitch where it’s pinned between his stomach and the drag of Shizuo’s bedsheets beneath him. Anticipation surges up his spine, hot and straining and unavoidable, and then Shizuo’s cock urges against his entrance and Izaya moans helpless pleasure against the sheets as the force inside him pushes the sound free of his lips.

It’s better, like this. There’s nowhere for Izaya to go, with Shizuo’s strength holding him in place against the application of that same against him, and Izaya thinks the memory of that grip alone would be enough to get him off a dozen times in fantasy. But this is no fantasy, no heat-hazy imagining: this is reality, from the creased weight of Shizuo’s sheets marking Izaya’s flushed skin to the humid weight of the air going dense with their sweat and gasped breathing to the unbreaking rhythm of Shizuo thrusting into Izaya with a determined focus as if he intends to never stop. Izaya’s fingers are curling into fists, reaching for traction on the sheets or against his palms without consideration for what he can grasp, but it doesn’t make a difference: it’s Shizuo’s grip that is pinning him in place, Shizuo’s presence that is bracing him down against the bed and making such absolute use of him. The other’s rhythm doesn’t shift over Izaya’s moans, doesn’t pause for the reflexive clenching of Izaya tightening around his length; Shizuo just keeps coming, keeps urging the strain in Izaya higher while his hold pins the other steady against the force of his motion. Izaya’s heart is racing, his breathing rasping in his chest, and then Shizuo loosens one of those iron-steady holds and leans in over him, his body curving forward and down as if drawn by the arc of Izaya’s back, as if pulled in by the strain in Izaya’s helplessly flexing shoulders. Shizuo’s body fits flush against Izaya’s, his chest meeting the curve of Izaya’s spine from hip to shoulder, and when he settles his elbow against the bed it’s over the other’s shoulder, to serve as brace and support at once. Shizuo lets his other hold go on Izaya’s hip, secure in giving up his grip now that he has the whole weight of his body to press Izaya down against the sheets, and when he slides his fingers in and down it’s to urge his palm flush against Izaya’s stomach, to fit his hand into the space between Izaya’s body and the texture of the sheets beneath them. Izaya tenses, his whole body flexing with pointless strength against the immovable weight pinning him down, and Shizuo’s hand draws down to find his cock, and he can’t help the flutter at his lashes any more than he can help the moan that spills up and past his lips as if a premonition of the release to come.

Shizuo’s grip is as steady as his movement, as unflinching as that elbow bracing so close against Izaya’s shoulder. His hips are still moving, his cock still working smoothly into Izaya in time with the heat of his own breathing at the back of Izaya’s neck, as his exhales pour heat against Izaya’s bare skin and tangle into his hair, but his hand moves in counterpoint, closing firm against Izaya’s shaft and stroking up and over his length while the weight of Shizuo’s body holds Izaya in place against the tremors of building tension that are quivering in his thighs and fluttering adrenaline down in the depths of his stomach. Izaya’s eyes are open but he’s not seeing anything, not paying attention to any of the details of that room that so held his interest when they first came in; his focus has narrowed to the span of the bed, the breadth of the mattress under him and the weight of the blankets as Shizuo presses him down against them, as Shizuo’s grip urges Izaya’s pleasure hotter with every breath Izaya takes against the tangle of Shizuo’s sheets.

Izaya can taste Shizuo on his tongue, the smell of his hair at the pillows and the tang of his sweat as he moves over him and the heat like summertime sun, sweeping up his spine and trembling in his chest to lay claim to him as surely as Shizuo is, to grip him with a fist as tight as the hold Shizuo is working up and over the length of his cock. Izaya’s thighs are flexing, his knees pressing in to tense against the resistance of Shizuo’s legs spread wide between them; his breath is straining, coming so hard in his chest he feels dizzy with the effort, like he’s fighting uphill just to win enough air to keep him present in the moment. And Shizuo is still moving, over him, in him, around him, filling his body and bracing him still and surging into him with every gasp of air Izaya takes to make Izaya part of this bed, of this room, of this life; and Shizuo’s mouth touches at the back of Izaya’s neck, his lips curving to mark out the outline of a kiss against the sweat-slick of the other’s skin, and Izaya’s back arches, his thighs spasm, his eyes roll back, and he comes, his orgasm pulled from him into one long, convulsive wave under the press of Shizuo’s body. Shizuo’s grip keeps stroking, Shizuo’s hips keep moving, and Izaya keeps coming, his vision blurring to white and his thoughts hazing and his breath stuttering in his chest as he quakes through the force of pleasure Shizuo is urging into him.

It seems to last forever, an eternity of sensation and heat and breathless, helpless electricity before Shizuo’s hand flexes with something less structured than the deliberate motion he’s been offering. His lips shift at Izaya’s neck, his mouth coming open with something too hot to be intentional, and Izaya comes back a little ways from the drifting blur of pleasure he was caught in to feel the rush of a voiceless groan at his skin and the jolting force of hips jerking forward to sink Shizuo’s cock fully inside him. Shizuo shudders over him, hissing on a breath as his shoulders flex, and Izaya spends the last of his breath in a whimper as Shizuo spills his release into his body. Shizuo’s body strains with the tension of aftershocks, inhuman strength spending itself through the flex and quiver of his muscles in time with the pulse of pleasure in his cock, before he gasps a deep breath of air, and lets it out in a groan, and goes slack with languid pleasure atop Izaya beneath him.

It shouldn’t be a comfortable position. Shizuo’s hand is still wrapped around Izaya’s cock, his knuckles pressing into the give of the other’s belly; the sheets under Izaya are clinging to his skin, damp with sweat and sticky with his own release, and it’s hard to catch a breath with the pressure of Shizuo’s chest bearing down so close against him. But Izaya lies perfectly still, struggling over breathing made difficult by pressure and humidity and his own trembling pleasure, and in the end it’s Shizuo who stirs himself without any request of such from Izaya at all. Izaya can feel the strength of intention come back into Shizuo’s body, flexing against his stomach and along the lines of his chest a moment before he braces his elbow and pushes himself up and off Izaya’s sweat-damp skin; the motion brings a rush of air with it, the movement alone enough to evaporate some of the damp into a chill against Izaya’s spine. He shuts his eyes, breathing deep to fill his hungry lungs with the first full breath in long minutes, and Shizuo eases his grip on Izaya’s cock to draw his fingers free and replace his careful grip against the other’s hip.

“I’m going to pull out,” he warns. Izaya doesn’t protest; he curls his fingers into fists on the sheets and shuts his eyes to brace himself. He moans as Shizuo slides out of him, his voice breaking with the easing of strain and the ache of loss, but Shizuo doesn’t lift his hands away, even as he eases his grip bracing Izaya’s hips in place. He draws his touch down instead, one palm coming up to rest against the curve of the other’s ass while the other slides over the back of Izaya’s thigh and down to his angled-open knee; Izaya shudders with the friction, his legs shaking under Shizuo’s touch, but he doesn’t say anything and Shizuo doesn’t lift his fingers. He keeps going, pressing his palm to Izaya’s calves, clasping against the bone at his ankle, trailing down to press against the arch of the other’s foot and down to the curl of Izaya’s toes slack against the bed. There’s a prickle of sensation that runs up Izaya’s leg from the contact as ticklish skin protests the touch, but he’s too spent to manage anything more than a flex of tension at his foot in answer. Shizuo huffs a breath that Izaya thinks might be a laugh and draws his hand up to clasp against Izaya’s ankle again, and Izaya lets himself go slack against the bed without opening his eyes to look back and see the weight of the gaze he’s sure Shizuo is trailing over his bare skin. He can feel it all the same, sliding up his legs and dipping across his back and up over his shoulders as clearly as if Shizuo’s fingers are trailing over his body instead of pressing proprietary weight against his hips, and he doesn’t move to pull himself away or shed Shizuo’s attention from its wandering path.

Shizuo’s fingers tighten against his ankle a moment before the other takes a breath to speak. “I’m going to take a bath,” he says, his voice low and as warm as the air so hot around them it makes the absence of clothing more reasonable than otherwise. Izaya tips his head to the side and opens his eyes to look over the line of his shoulder and meet Shizuo’s steady gaze, to see the flush of satisfied desire and calm contentment turning the other’s expression so gentle. “Want to come with me?”

Izaya gives this question due consideration, turning over the relative merits of clean skin and the chance to linger in Shizuo’s bedroom and finding his preference split about equally. It’s finally Shizuo who pushes him to a decision, as Izaya’s drifting attention follows the shift of breathing in the other’s chest down to the taut line of his stomach and the weight of his softening cock against the dark curls thick at the base. Izaya watches the flex of Shizuo’s thighs, the idle motion of muscle moving under the skin as the other keeps himself balanced between the slack angle of Izaya’s knees, and it’s the thought of water following the same line as his attention that finally urges some measure of strength back into Izaya’s pleasure-heavy limbs.

“Yes,” he says, just that, and he turns his head down to the sheets as he slides his hands back to brace under his shoulders so he can push himself up. The hold at his ankle draws away, there’s a shift at the mattress, and then Shizuo’s hand is catching against his stomach to urge Izaya up and over his knees as fast as the other pushes. Izaya lets Shizuo draw him to upright, rocking back onto the support of his knees as Shizuo slides back to make space for him, and for a moment he lingers there, kneeling against the mattress and looking at the tangle of the sheets in front of him. The shape of his body is pressed into clarity against the folds, the indentation of his head at the pillows and the curl of his fingers over the sheets and the wet of his orgasm dark against the bed; Izaya can almost see himself in the outline, as if the memory of his presence is still lingering there, made indelible by their joined efforts. There’s an ache against the inside of his chest, a pressure tight around his heart like a fist; and then Shizuo’s hand against his hip shifts to draw up towards his shoulder, and:

“Izaya?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya blinks and takes a breath and turns his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.” And he lets Shizuo take his hand and lead him out of the room and into the rest of the house.


	10. Setting

Shizuo has the bath to himself for his soak.

Izaya came with him into the bathroom, to be sure. He was moving slow, unsteady on his feet as if uncertain of his balance and making no move to draw his hand free of Shizuo’s in his, and he lingered while Shizuo started the shower and drew them both into the spray to rinse them free of the pleasant evidence of their mutual satisfaction. Izaya had shut his eyes to the splash of the water, had ducked his head under the shower and let his hair fall into a dark curtain around his face, but he hadn’t protested when Shizuo turned his head up into the light, and when Shizuo ducked in to kiss the wet off his lips Izaya had smiled before winding his arms around Shizuo’s neck to press skin-close while they lingered in the slow, satisfied heat of pressing mouths and lips and tongues together. Even when they broke apart it was only for a few minutes at a time, to take turns pressing soap against each other’s bodies between the punctuation of lips to mouths, shoulders, wrists, thighs. By the time they were clean and rinsed Shizuo wanted nothing so much as to sink into the buoyant support of the steaming bath and let the water take the weight of his body for as long as he can stand the heat, but Izaya laid claim to the towel instead of joining him, slipping out the door with a promise to bring it back that he coupled with a smile sharp enough that Shizuo had some doubts about the actual accuracy of that statement. Still, Shizuo was heavy with satisfaction and heat and comfort, and minor considerations like how he was going to dry himself could be saved for such time as he actually needed to answer them, so instead he lowered himself into the steam of the bath and tipped his head back against the edge to wait for Izaya’s possible return with more comfort than concern.

Shizuo doesn’t mean to lose track of his surroundings. The bath is very warm, the haze of the steam rising around him as soothing to the slow drift of his thoughts as his recent orgasm proved for his body; but he must be more tired than he realizes, because he doesn’t hear Izaya come back into the bathroom at all. It’s the sound of the door clicking shut that stirs him to open his eyes, and by then his towel is already returned to where it was on the rack, and there’s no sign of the other anywhere in the room. Shizuo wonders for a moment if Izaya is going to slip away outright, if he’ll be gone from the apartment by the time Shizuo emerges as if he was never there at all; but Izaya has been less and less prone to breaking free of Shizuo’s hold over the last few weeks, and his interest in visiting Shizuo’s apartment seems to tend in precisely the opposite direction. Shizuo frowns at the door for a moment, debating over possible outcomes; and finally he decides that he’ll just track Izaya down in the city himself, if he needs to, and leans back to lose another drowsy span of time to the steam and comfort of the bath.

He’s warm all over by the time he finally emerges. His skin is flushed to pink as proof that he may have lingered longer in the water than he needed to, but Shizuo feels so heavy with contentment that he can’t find any kind of regret in him for his overlong bath. His towel is damp from Izaya’s use, a little heavier and a little cooler than it usually is as if to offer proof of the other’s presence; Shizuo pauses for a moment with his hair dripping wet around his shoulders and his skin still shining with damp to press the towel to his nose and breathe in against it, wondering vaguely if he’ll be able to catch a suggestion of that metal-bright tang of the scent Izaya always seems to carry with him. It smells mostly like Shizuo’s own bathroom, the smell of his shampoo and the honey of the fancy bodywash that Kasuka gifted him for his birthday, but if Shizuo shuts his eyes he can pick out some suggestion of something more underneath, like a glimpse of a black jacket nearly hidden in the deep weight of a shadow on a sunny day. The thought makes him smile and hums heat down his spine in a far more pleasant echo of the burn of tension that used to hit him when he considered this subject, and he gives over seeking out traces of Izaya so he can dry off and go find the man himself.

He tries the bedroom first. It’s the closest room to the bathroom, and he needs to dress himself again after his indulgent soak; and it seems the focus of Izaya’s interest, judging from the direct demand he issued upon coming through the front door into the apartment. There are traces of him still there, of course: his regular dark clothes are still in a pile on the floor where Shizuo dropped them, tangled into Shizuo’s own uniform when he was busy stripping them both down to the satisfaction of bare skin. The blankets of the bed are rumpled, too, showing the marks of effort and pleasure with equal clarity; Shizuo considers them for a moment, lingering over the dull ache of satisfaction deep in his belly even if his body is too drained at present to muster the desire that the memory will bring later. But there are other indications too, marks that Izaya came back here even if he’s clearly absent now: the bottle of lube that Shizuo had dropped to the floor is set at the top edge of a dresser, now, balanced precariously at the very corner like it’s preparing to topple into the topmost drawer, which has been left open by a half-inch as if to show the sign of rummaging fingers. The closet door is open outright, although Shizuo can’t see anything missing from the array of carefully pressed shirts and pants hanging within; he claims a fresh shirt for himself while he’s looking, since the one he was wearing has gone suspiciously missing from the heap of clothes on the floor. The blinds over the window are turned to a different alignment than they were, angled left instead of right, and when Shizuo pulls his slacks back on he finds his belt drawn free of the loops and left to wind a coil halfway under the edge of the bed. He leaves it there, contenting himself with just his pants and the fresh shirt over his shoulders without bothering with extricating his undershirt or doing up the buttons, and he goes back out to return his somewhat waterlogged towel to its rack before continuing his search for his missing boyfriend.

There’s no one in the living space either, when Shizuo comes through the doorway, but the lack of a physical presence hasn’t limited the evidence of Izaya’s existence here either. One of the books is drawn free of the bookcase and left out on the coffee table, alongside the one Shizuo has been reading on those rare evenings he doesn’t have plans with exactly the man he’s looking for, and Shizuo’s own book has been left atop it with the receipt he’s been using for a bookmark folded down to mark a second place as well as his own. One of the pillows on the couch is in a different corner, tossed onto the other as if to make a lounge or a makeshift bed; the remote for the television is on the other side of the stand than its usual orientation. Shizuo stands in the entrance of the living room, gazing at the dozen harmless signs of Izaya’s influence here; and then there’s a whistle of steam escaping a kettle from around the corner, and his attention turns to the kitchen instead.

It’s not a surprise to find Izaya there. There isn’t much left for Shizuo to check in the apartment, after all, and the heap of clothes left on the bedroom floor speak eloquently for the odds of the other still being somewhere in the house rather than losing himself amidst the crowds on the city streets. He’s dressed, at least insofar as Shizuo’s missing shirt can manage: it covers his chest, at any rate, and between the length of the hem and the few inches of difference in their height Izaya’s hips and the top of his thighs are hidden by the fabric as well, as long as he doesn’t lift his arms to draw the edge up higher. Half the cupboards in the kitchen are open, as if Izaya didn’t bother to hide the search he must have gone on to obtain a kettle and tea, and he’s in the middle of setting a tea infuser into the mug before him as the kettle hisses protest against the stove. He doesn’t turn around when Shizuo comes into the doorway, doesn’t show any indication of being aware of the other’s presence at all; he just keeps his head ducked forward and his attention fixed intently on the cup in front of him as he reaches for the kettle, as if the process of pouring hot water over tea leaves is infinitely more complex than navigating the web of plots and machinations he usually passes through with such grace. Shizuo watches him without speaking, waiting until Izaya has filled his waiting cup with hot water and landed the kettle back onto a cool burner before he takes a breath to speak.

“I could have made you tea when we came in.”

Izaya doesn’t tense, doesn’t startle; there’s no indication of surprise in him at all at Shizuo’s speech, not even to glance back over his shoulder. “I didn’t want it when we came in.” He swings the infuser through the water in his cup to speed the steeping before he sets it against the edge of the mug again, still with his gaze fixed in front of him instead of looking up to Shizuo in the doorway.

Shizuo goes on watching for a moment. There’s something uncanny about having Izaya in his kitchen, going through the motions of something as patently domestic as making a cup of tea; but there’s a satisfaction to it, too, to the weight of Shizuo’s shirt across Izaya’s shoulders and pushed up around his wrists and the casual grace of his bare legs as he draws a foot back behind himself to brace his toes against the floor and tense his foot into an elegant arc. It seems impossible to have him here, as if his presence has undone some familiarity of Shizuo’s apartment to make it something entirely different, a page stripped from a magazine or a scene in a movie set; it seems impossible that he has never been here before, that Shizuo has ever moved through this space without Izaya’s fingerprints against the counter and his shirts draped around Izaya’s shoulders and Izaya’s shoes angled into careful precision by the front door. Izaya looks as if he belongs here, as if he has reached out to lay claim to the space of Shizuo’s life with the aggressive force of his touch, of his presence, of all the ways in which he’s scattered evidence of his existence in this space: as if he’s made himself the subject of a picture that has only ever framed the mundanity of Shizuo’s personal life instead. Shizuo stares at him, taking in the mess of his open cupboards and the disarray across his counter and the deliberate grace of Izaya’s lean against the support while he waits for his tea to steep; and then he takes a step forward out of the doorway and moves to join the other.

Izaya doesn’t lift his head to look at Shizuo as the other approaches. His hair is falling heavy around his face, the shining black of it granted extra weight by the damp still clinging to the strands; he doesn’t move away as Shizuo steps in behind him and catches his arms around Izaya’s waist to hold them together as he leans forward to press his nose to the dark falling at the back of Izaya’s neck. He shuts his eyes as he breathes in, letting his attention linger on the heat of the shower still holding to Izaya’s skin, the humid wet of his hair just starting to dry against the collar of the shirt, the smell of vanilla that Shizuo recognizes as his own shampoo rather than Izaya’s preferred variety. There’s a whisper of jasmine in the air, too, curling up from the steam of the tea Izaya has brewing in front of him; and there’s Izaya himself, the sharp tang of his skin still distinct even under the weight of Shizuo’s shirt and the scent of his shampoo and the sweet of his tea. Shizuo presses closer, turning his head to fit nearer, and Izaya ducks his head forward so the pattern of his vertebrae rise close to the skin under Shizuo’s mouth. Shizuo takes another breath, drawing the heat of Izaya’s skin to fill the whole space of his chest, and when he lets it go it’s with a groan at his lips.

“God, Izaya,” he murmurs without lifting his mouth from the other’s skin. “You smell so _good_.”

Izaya doesn’t answer aloud. But he does lift his hand from the edge of the counter to fit his fingers around Shizuo’s wrist and brace his arm atop the other’s around him, and when Shizuo pulls back against him Izaya lets his weight rock back to lean at the support of the other’s chest. The perfume of the tea rises from Izaya’s cup to wind its way around them both, and Shizuo thinks his apartment has never felt so much like a home.


	11. Reality

Izaya likes Shizuo’s bed.

It’s not as expansive as his own, to be sure. Shizuo’s is wide enough for two people to lie side by side, but it’s a far closer thing than in the vast space provided by the overlarge mattress Izaya has outfitted his own room with. And there are certainly times when Izaya appreciates the sheer size of his own bed, particularly when he and Shizuo are pressed together in the middle of it; it feels like they might be adrift on some personal island, as if the rest of the world might slip away and leave them to linger together while time forgets to pull them in its wake. But the smaller width of Shizuo’s bed means it’s impossible to lie atop it without the contact of a foot brushing a shin, or knuckles skimming a hip, or breath spilling warm through sleep-tangled hair. Izaya’s bed is a world unto itself, a space set aside for them to abandon all reality but what of it exists in each other; but Shizuo’s bed is part of his own world, part of the life that has been so unreachable to Izaya’s desperate fingers for so long, and there’s a satisfaction just to lying across the sheets with Shizuo’s body curling in close against his back while Izaya’s idle attention makes familiar all the idiosyncrasies of this space that is so much Shizuo’s personal haven.

Shizuo stirs against Izaya’s back, his body shifting with the tension of a stretch although he doesn’t ease his arm draped around Izaya’s waist. When his head moves it’s to press his forehead to the back of Izaya’s head and fit his lips to idle contact against the other’s neck, as gracefully as if he has spent the last decade practicing the motion. Izaya’s lashes dip, his vision hazing out of focus for a moment for the heat of Shizuo’s mouth on his skin, and when he turns his head it’s to angle down against the pillows that always smell like the vanilla of Shizuo’s shampoo so he can make a better offering of the angle of his neck. He’s rewarded by another kiss, this one longer as Shizuo comes up towards full consciousness, and the tightening of the arm around his waist as if to brace him steady against the demands of the other’s affection. Izaya huffs a breath, making more of a show of the exhale than he needs to, and when he speaks it’s without opening his eyes. “Have you decided to keep me out of trouble by holding me hostage in your bedroom, Shizu-chan?”

“Mm,” Shizuo hums at the back of his neck, the sound low enough in his chest that it comes out more as a purr than anything else. “Maybe.” He shifts his weight to press in against Izaya before him and kicks to free one leg from the blankets wound around their feet; Izaya doesn’t protest the movement, even when Shizuo hooks his leg up and around Izaya’s thigh to hold him down against the bed. “You don’t have anything you need to do back in Shinjuku, do you?”

Izaya angles one shoulder up into a shrug, moving deliberately carefully to avoid urging Shizuo’s hold away. “I think the district can take care of itself for a night.”

Shizuo ducks his head down to offer a soft sound against the angle of Izaya’s shoulder. “What if I decide to keep you here through the morning too?”

Izaya’s skin prickles into heat, as if his blood is going warmer just in answer to the rumble of Shizuo’s voice, but he doesn’t open his eyes and doesn’t move to lift his arm from where Shizuo is holding onto him. “You tell me,” he says. “I’m entirely at your mercy at the moment, Shizu-chan. I couldn’t break free even if I wanted to.”

Shizuo laughs against the dip between Izaya’s shoulderblades. “True,” he says, and he loosens his grip on Izaya’s waist to tip back over the far side of the bed. He still has one arm angled out under the other’s head, but the movement leaves Izaya free of anything more restrictive than the tangle of the bedsheets wound around his shins. “What about now?”

His tone is light, his words teasing. Izaya can hear the smile on Shizuo’s lips without having to turn to see the curve of it, that familiar soft of happiness that he memorized from the still frames of photographs long before he laid claim to it in his own life. He opens his eyes to gaze out at the far side of Shizuo’s room, at the simple layout made valuable simply by the other’s presence, by the proof it provides of Shizuo’s life and preferences in every detail; and then he twists against the bed, bracing a foot at the mattress and pushing to urge himself up and over so he can face Shizuo lying over the sheets behind him. Shizuo is still smiling, still offering the easy pleasure of the expression that Izaya heard so clearly on his words, but his lashes dip as he sees Izaya’s face, his mouth softens into the beginning of concern as his forehead creases.

“Izaya?” he asks. He turns back over onto his side and lifts his hand to touch at Izaya’s waist, the ghosting contact of reassurance rather than a more deliberate bracing hold. “What’s wrong?”

Izaya looks at Shizuo for a moment. There’s something breathtaking to this too, to the simple expression of concern lingering in the other’s eyes and tensing his mouth to a frown; Izaya never used to see this, before, never managed to capture this even in the focus of his camera lens. This is still new, as novel in its own way as the haze of desire that still startles him whenever he sees it in Shizuo’s eyes, flushing over the other’s cheeks with a heat that he has daydreamed into reality dozens of times but that is always more than he ever imagined, more than his faulty memory can piece together after the fact. Shizuo’s hand slides against Izaya’s waist, trailing against the curve of the other’s body as his gaze wanders Izaya’s face in pursuit of some insight into the words waiting to be spoken; and Izaya takes a breath, and speaks in a rush.

“I want to keep a change of clothes here.” Shizuo blinks, his eyes going wide with surprise as his mouth softens from the strain of worry into startled confusion, and Izaya seizes on another breath and goes on speaking, more rapidly now that the first weight of words are past. “If you intend to make a habit of keeping me overnight, I’d rather not have to carry an overnight bag every time I make the trip.” Izaya lifts his shoulder in a shrug to sketch out the impression of disinterest, although he’s afraid the tension in his throat will make the facade of this clear even if Shizuo is disregarding the color in his cheeks as an aftereffect of arousal instead of the self-consciousness it is. “I suppose I _could_ carry on as I have been and just wear the same clothes back the next day, but it would be far more convenient if I could have something clean to wear so I don’t have to travel back to my apartment to change before getting to work.”

The corner of Shizuo’s mouth pulls up on a flicker of tension. “I thought you did most of your work from Shinjuku.”

“I’ve been expanding into Ikebukuro again over the last month,” Izaya tells him without hesitation. “It’s been easier to make contacts if I can do it in person, turns out.”

“Uh huh,” Shizuo says. “A lot of things are easier to do in person.”

Izaya presses his lips together to swallow as subtly as he can manage past the pressure in his throat. “It’s just a matter of convenience,” he tells Shizuo. “I’d only need a corner of your closet. You wouldn’t even notice I was there.”

Shizuo snorts. “I always notice you,” he says, and tightens his hold on Izaya’s hip. “Sure.”

Izaya’s just taking a breath to offer another point in favor of his suggestion; Shizuo’s capitulation catches him off-guard enough that it takes him a moment to close his mouth and another to retrieve a reply from his scattered thoughts. “Sure?”

“Yeah.” Shizuo lifts his head to nod towards the closet. “I hardly use half the space in there anyway. Or you can take a drawer in the dresser, if you’d prefer.” His hand slides up from Izaya’s hip to settle at the curve of the other’s spine, his fingers spreading wide against Izaya’s back; Izaya arches into the contact without thinking, his body shaping itself to the weight of Shizuo’s touch as much on instinct as intention. “I should get another towel for you, too.”

“You should,” Izaya agrees. “Who has only one towel in their whole apartment, honestly?” Shizuo laughs rather than frowning, his expression easing towards happiness as he pulls against Izaya’s back to urge the other in closer, and Izaya lets himself be pulled, sliding across the sheets to fit to the span of Shizuo’s chest as the other steadies his grip on him and ducks his head towards Izaya’s. Izaya lifts his hand to set at the back of Shizuo’s neck so he can wind his fingers in against the yellow locks and brace his palm against the other’s skin before he takes a breath and steadies himself back into sincerity. “You don’t mind?”

“No.” Shizuo shakes his head without pulling away; his hair catches and tangles with Izaya’s in front of him. “It sounds nice.” He lifts his chin fractionally; his mouth skims the corner of Izaya’s without quite pressing into the weight of a kiss. “You’ll still wear my shirts around the apartment, right?”

Izaya huffs a laugh against Shizuo’s mouth. “Bring some to Shinjuku next time you’re over and I’ll wear them around mine too.”

“Deal,” Shizuo says, and he lifts his head to press his mouth flush to Izaya’s before him. Izaya shuts his eyes, his attention giving way to the urging of Shizuo’s lips against his, and when Shizuo’s tongue touches against his mouth he’s already parting his lips into an invitation. Shizuo tips forward to urge Izaya back down against the bed, his hold easing the motion to gentleness, and Izaya lets himself be pushed down, and he doesn’t think about cameras at all.

He’s come to like experience better than observation, after all.


End file.
